THE  LIBRARY  - 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


GIFT  OF 

Dr.  Gordon  Viatklns 


LABOUR 


-jzr>  3<n{^Jj^5^ 


LABOUR 

THE    GIANT    WITH 
THE  FEET  OF  CLAY 

by 

SHAW  DESMOND. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1922 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


TO   My   OLD    COMRADES 


«M 


I 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE 

The  writer,  who  has  been  a  member  of  the  Labour 
Party  since  1906,  has  special  qualifications  for 
the  critical  analysis  of  Labour  which  follows.  He 
has  not  only  had  some  personal  experience  of  the 
executive  side  of  Labour  and  Socialist  bodies  but 
he  has  spoken  for  Labour  throughout  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  at  street  corner  and  in  public 
hall,  and  widely  lectured  upon  it  abroad,  although 
of  later  years  he  has  been  more  looker-on  than 
active  participator.  He  stood  as  Independent 
Socialist  against  the  Right  Hon.  John  Burns  for 
the  Battersea  division  of  London  in  the  19 10 
General  Election,  and  has  made  an  intensive  study 
of  Labour,  both  national  and  international,  over 
a  period  of  fifteen  years,  not  only  in  this  country 
but  also,  in  many  of  the  countries  themselves, 
throughout  Europe  as  in  the  United  States. 

His  novels  and  plays  have  largely  centred  around 
democracy,  whilst  his  writings  upon  Labour  and 
Socialism  have  appeared  constantly  not  only  in 
various  English  periodicals  but  also  in  the  Con- 
tinental and  American  press. 

His  knowledge  of  the  movement  is  therefore 
not  that  of  the  armchair  but  from  the  inside,  whilst 
his  confession  that  he  is  still  a  convinced  believer 
in  Labour  and  Democracy  lends  especial  point 
to  his  analysis,  an  analysis  often  searching  and 
challenging,  but  always  sympathetic  and  under- 
standing. 

vii 


FOREWORD 

In  a  very  real  sense,  I  have  written  this  little  book 
against  my  own  will  and  only  after  many  years  of 
hesitancy. 

I  have  hesitated  because  not  only  am  I  still  a 
Socialist  but  because  the  conclusions  to  which, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  I  have  come,  have  been  forced 
upon  me  in  spite  of  myself  and  because  they  destroy 
in  my  own  case,  as  in  the  cases  of  countless  others, 
the  illusions  of  half  a  lifetime. 

I  have  written  it  because  not  only  do  I  believe 
it  to  be  the  democrats  who  are  killing  democracy 
but  because  I  know  it  to  represent  what  increasing 
numbers  of  socialists  and  labour  sympathisers 
are  feeling  throughout  the  world,  often  without 
daring  to  acknowledge  it  to  themselves. 

It  will  be  said  that,  whilst  I  have  criticised 
Socialism  and  the  world's  Labour  movement  in 
these  pages,  I  have  not  dealt  with  the  failures  and 
shortcomings  of  Capitalism.  That,  however,  has 
not  been  my  business  here,  where  I  am  concerned 
only  with  Labour. 


IX 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAOB 

publishers'  note  vii 

FOREWORD  ix 

I.    BY    WAY    OF    INTRODUCTION  I 

II.    *  THE    MAN    ON    THE    SOAP    BOX  '  5 

III.  'the    RED    INTERNATIONAL*  1 6 

IV.  HOW    THE    WORKING    MAN    THINKS  29 
V.    THE    LABOUR    PARTY  39 

VI.    LEADERS    AND    LED  ^6 

VII.    THE    WAR    AND    DEMOS  66 

VIII.    THE    BIRTH    OF    A    PARTY  77 

IX.    *  THE    BRAIN    OF    LABOUR  '  85 

X.    *  SOCIALIST    UNITY  '  98 

XI.    '  DIRECT    ACTION  '  IO7 

XII.    GOAL    AND    TACTICS  128 

XIII.  PRESS    AND    PROPAGANDA  1 39 

XIV.  THE    fools'    PARADISE  1 54 
XV.    LABOUR    AND    WAR  1 63 

XVI.    NATIONALISM    AND    INTERNATIONALISM  1 77 

xi 


Contents 

XVII.    *  THE    IDEA    OF    GOD*  1 88 

XVIII.    LABOUR   AT   THE    CROSS-ROADS  204 

XIX.    IF    LABOUR    CAME   TO    POWER  2I7 

XX.    PROBLEMS    FACING   THE    RISING  DEMO- 
CRACY 228 

XXI.    *  WHAT    SHALL    LABOUR    DO    .    .  .}*                242 

XXII.    *  SPIRITUAL    DEMOCRACY  '  248 


Xll 


BY    WAY    OF    INTRODUCTION 

Labour  stands  to-day  at  the  cross-roads.  What 
it  does  within  the  next  few  years,  perhaps  within 
the  next  year,  will  decide  its  destiny  in  our  day 
and  generation.  But  it  will  decide  not  only  its 
own  destiny  but  possibly  the  destiny  of  the  British 
Empire  and,  taking  it  in  its  international  aspect, 
the  destiny  of  the  world  itself. 

What  the  average  man,  and  especially  the 
labour  man,  whether  leader  or  led,  with  rare 
exception,  does  not  realise  is  that  the  Great  War 
has  shown  the  feet  of  clay  of  the  Labour  Colossus. 
Not  only  that,  but  it  has  switched  the  machine  of 
the  British  labour  movement  as  that  of  the  inter- 
national labour  movement  from  its  original  pre- 
war track — perhaps  to  send  it  hurtling  to  destruction 
amidst  the  cheers  of  its  demented  passengers, 
drunk  on  democracy. 

In  Great  Britain,  the  difference  between  the 
pre-war  labour  movement  and  the  after-the-war 
movement  is  simply  the  difference  between 
'  religion  '  and  '  politic'  From  tlie  *8o*s  down 
to  1 9 14,  that  movement  was  more  a  religion  than 
a  politic.  To-day,  it  is  more  *  politic  *  than 
*  religion.*  The  man  has  become  merged  in  the 
machine  of  politics,  the  machine  mastering  the 
man. 

I 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

It  is  a  fact,  known  to  every  man  and  woman 
in  the  labour  movement  to-day,  that  individual 
members  of  the  Labour  Party  in  increasing  numbers, 
as,  indeed,  whole  sections  (the  majority  of  the 
sixty-thousand  of  the  Independent  Labour  Party, 
for  example,  as  shown  by  its  press  and  recent 
congresses)  are  not  only  dissatisfied  with  the  party 
machine  but  are  profoundly  disquieted  in  their 
hearts  at  the  materialistic  trend  of  labour  and  at 
that  *  beer,  bread,  and  'baccy  '  policy  which  tends 
more  and  more  to  regard  the  objective  of  labour 
as  the  filling  of  bellies  rather  than  brains  and 
Demos  a  body  with  no  soul. 

This  trend  began  to  show  itself  in  1906,  when 
the  Labour  Party  was  first  returned  in  force  to 
Westminster  and,  curiously  enough,  at  the  very 
moment  when  the  red  flame  of  democracy  glowed 
most  deeply. 

It  is  not  only  true,  as  Bernard  Shaw  wrote  long 
ago,  that  the  Labour  and  Socialist  movement — 
and  here  we  are  taking  labour  and  socialism  as 
more  or  less  interdependent — is  one  of  the  most 
difficult  movements  in  which  to  remain  for  the 
man  of  vision — but  it  is  true  that  it  has  broken  the 
hearts  and  the  hopes  of  more  good  men  and  women 
than  almost  any  other  movement,  professedly 
idealist,  of  which  we  have  record. 

It  is  no  accident  that  men  so  differentiate  as 
Mr  H.  G.  Wells,  Mr  Robert  Blatchford,  and  Mr 
R.  B.  Cunninghame-Graham  have,  like  almost 
any  Socialist  leader  one  likes  to  mention,  become 
deeply  dissatisfied  with  and  critical  of  the  Labour 
Party,  which  is  taken  in  these  pages  as  the  nucleus 
2 


By  Way  of  Introduction 

of  labour.  Men  and  women  of  power  and  vision, 
steam-rollered  by  the  party  machine,  which,  accord- 
ing to  Colonel  Wedgewood,  himself  a  member 
of  the  party  in  parliament,  is  *  a  lifeless  machine 
which  gives  no  credit  to  but  rather  repudiates 
individual  action,  is  killing  young  men,  and 
turning  active  politicians  into  mere  voting  machines,' 
are  not  likely  to  continue  to  place  their  bruised 
and  bleeding  imaginations  in  the  way  of  the 
labour  juggernaut. 

Certain  statements,  at  least,  may  be  made 
without  much  fear  of  contradiction. 

In  the  first  place,  the  labour  movement,  not 
only  in  Britain  but  in  all  lands,  is  hopelessly  split 
upon  policy  and  goal — notably  into  the  two  main 
sections  of  bolshevists  or  direct  actionists,  and 
constitutionalists,  or,  as  it  may  be  put,  into  the 
policy  of  the  bullet  versus  the  policy  of  the  ballot. 
The  leaders,  whether  in  parliament  or  the  trade 
unions,  are  really  the  led.  Lastly,  the  movement 
as  a  whole  is  inchoate,  lacks  constructiveness,  is 
bankrupt  in  spiritual  driving  force,  and  tends 
more  and  more  to  exalt  the  material  at  the  expense 
of  the  finer  things  of  life.  It  is  as  though  the  body 
should  say  to  the  soul  :   *  I  will  lead.    You  follow.' 

The  Labour  Colossus,  seemingly  powerful,  is 
really  standing  on  feet  of  clay  and  may  collapse  at 
any  moment.  For  when  the  soul  leaves  the  body, 
the  body  dies. 

But  men  and  women  of  imagination,  still  keeping 
alight  the  sacred  fire  which  illuminated  the  pioneers 
of  labour,  are,  all  unconsciously,  beginning  to 
evolve  '  The  New  Democracy.'     It  is  a  democracy 

3 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

which,  dropping  the  catchword  *  Equality '  and 
observing  that  men  and  women  are  enormously 
varied  in  quality,  development,  and  effort,  is 
gradually  recognising  the  principle  of  *  spiritual 
aristocracy.' 

It  is  upon  these  men  and  women,  often  unknown 
to  one  another,  often  unconscious  of  their  own 
mission,  rising  up  not  only  here  in  Great  Britain 
but  throughout  the  world,  that  the  future  of 
democracy  depends.  It  is  that  *  eternal  minority  * 
from  which  all  progress  comes.  But  all  this 
implies  a  partial  reversion  to  the  original  ideals  of 
the  labour  pioneers  and  direct  opposition  to  the 
present  methods  and  goal  of  organised  labour. 

We  made  our  god  of  brute  Democracy,  which 
was  the  God  of  the  Majority,  and  we  found  that 
it  had  feet  of  clay.  The  men  and  women  who  are 
coming  will  not  make  that  mistake. 


II 


THE    MAN    ON    THE    SOAP    BOX 

The  whole  labour  movement  in  this  country  starts 
on  the  soap  box  at  the  street  corner — that  soap 
box  which  has  become  democracy's  historic  ros- 
trum. It  is  the  man  on  the  soap  box  who  is  the 
architect  of  the  house  of  labour.  It  is  the  parliament 
of  the  street  corner  upon  which  the  Mother  of 
Parliaments  in  our  day  has  been  and  even  still  is 
being  reared.  The  seven  and  a  half  millions  of 
organised  labour  in  Britain  have  been  gathered 
together,  first,  painfully,  and  later,  plethorically, 
by  the  man  at  the  street  corner. 

That  the  soap  box  is  passing  is  significant.  It 
marks  the  passing  of  a  phase.  It  marks  the  passing 
of  the  labour  movement  from  the  religious  to  the 
political  phase^ — from  struggle  to  success.  And 
it  is  success,  rather  than  struggle,  that  kills. 

When  in  the  dawn  of  this  century  and  particu- 
larly in  1 906  after  the  return  of  the  Labour  Party 
for  the  first  time  in  strength  to  Westminster,  we 
went  out  into  the  highways  and  byways  as 
the  apostles  of  old,  we  went  out  not  to 
expound  a  political  creed  but  to  preach  a  new 
religion.  The  religion  of  Democracy.  We  were 
John  the  Baptists  and,  even  after  1906,  voices 
crying  in  the  wilderness,  preparing  the  way  of  the 
Lord.     When   shivering  in   icy  blast  or  scorched 

L.    .  B  5 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

under  burning  sun  we  stood  at  the  street  corner 
and  set  up  our  red  flag  for  the  winds  to  beat  upon 
it  and  the  weather  to  fade  it,  we  were  setting  up 
the  symbol  of  our  faith  as  the  Early  Christians 
set  up  the  symbol  of  the  Cross.  Some  of  us  were 
even  prepared  to  die  for  our  faith.  And  when  we 
sang  the  opening  lines  of  the  Hymn  of  British 
Democracy,  not  the  *  Marseillaise '  but  *  The  Red 
Flag': 

*  The  people*s  flag  is  deepest  red. 

It  shrouded  oft  our  martyred  dead.  .  »  .* 

we  did  so  with  all  the  fervour  of  the  Christians  in 
the  Roman  Coliseum,  but  with  the  roars  of  the 
crowd  instead  of  the  roars  of  wild  beasts  in  our 
ears — sometimes  indistinguishable.  And  some- 
times there  was  more  than  a  flavour  of  ^Christiani 
ad  leones  I  *  about  those  sacrificial  meetings  of 
the  streets. 

You  can  see  us  standing  on  a  four-inch  plank 
on  London's  Mile-End  Waste,  a  little  self-con- 
scious, a  little  self-satisfied,  but  entirely  genuine, 
holding  on  to  the  edge  of  circumstance,  what 
time  the  thunder  of  the  buses  and  the  howls  of 
the  darkest  East  are  sounding  in  our  ears.  Or, 
standing  upon  one  of  the  Clarion  propaganda 
vans,  holding  a  hostile  crowd  with  fear  trembling 
in  one  eye  and  defiance  shining  out  of  the  other — 
not  an  uncommon  combination  for  the  propagandist 
of  those  days — sometimes  thanking  the  democratic 
deities  when  we  finally  escaped  the  jaws  of  the 
hungry  and  angry  gentlemen  beneath  the  tailboard 
6 


*  The  Man  on  the  Soap  Box  ' 

of  the  *  William  Morris  '  van,  itself  a  palatial 
waggon,  amidst  the  exquisite  carvings  of  which 
would  be  entangled  such  Labour  texts  as  *  Brother- 
hood is  life — the  lack  of  brotherhood  is  death.' 

A  text  which  received  pointed  emphasis  for  the 
writer  one  fine  night  at  an  East  End  meeting  when 
a  stone  from  the  brotherly  bosom  of  the  Great 
Unwashed  smashed  the  scroll-work  of  the  van 
just  above  his  left  ear.  But  our  sufferings  were 
sweet  nothings  to  those  of  our  predecessors,  for  it 
was  in  the  same  district  that  Will  Thorne,  M.P., 
told  me  that  in  the  early  wilder  and  woolier  days  of 
the  movement  before  he  had  exchanged  the  soap 
box  for  a  seat  in  parliament,  he  had  been  presented 
at  several  and  various  times  with  bottles,  British 
eggs  (assorted),  and  even  a  cat,  in  the  later  stages 
of  decomposition. 

But  even  '  the  darkest  East '  never  held  in  its 
bull  neck  and  unshaven  jowl  such  malignant  threat 
of  deviltry  as  some  of  the  aboriginal  denizens  of 
the  remoter  country  districts — dumb,  dangerous 
devils. 

There  was  the  patriarch  of  one  of  the  less 
accessible  yokel-tribes  of  farther  Essex  who,  leading 
a  ferocious  mongrel  with  a  head  like  a  calf, 
greeted  a  flying  column  of  our  *  Clarion  Scouts  * 
with  the  encouraging  :  *  Orl  right.  Yew  tark 
Socialism  at  your  own  risk  and  chance  what's 
comin'  to  yew — Buldger  'ere  '  (that  was  the  dog) 
*  can  do  'is  bit.  Muddle-in-the-Hole  don't  want 
none  of  your  pesky  interference — it  don't  know 
nothin*  about  nothin*  and  what's  more  it  don't 
want  to  know  nothin'   about  nothin'  .  .  .'     And 

7 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

then,    inquiringly:     'When    be    yew    a-goin'    to 
begin  ?  ' 

It  was  the  spirit  behind  the  historic  meeting  at 
Dunmow,  of  *  flitch  of  bacon  *  fame,  when  the 
yokels,  contemptuous  of  the  Good  Samaritans 
who  had  come  to  save,  either  passed  by  on  the 
other  side,  or  hid  themselves  behind  walls  and 
fences,  or  entrenched  themselves  in  ditches — but 
all  holding  that  dumb,  dangerous  threat.  I  can 
see  them  now  with  their  heavy,  dull  faces  as  they 
gradually  crept  in  to  the  taunts  of  the  speaker 
surrounded  by  his  devoted  band  of  standard 
bearers,  finally  rushing  the  platform  from  under 
him  and  hurling  him  and  his  little  band  into 
oblivion.  In  some  such  way  it  seemed  to  our  excited 
imaginations  must  the  wild  beasts  of  the  Roman 
arena  have  crept  in  upon  their  prey. 

Not  that  our  opponents  always  used  the  mailed 
fist.  Sometimes  the  velvet  glove  did  its  work. 
We  have  been  more  than  once  silenced  by  silence 
— by  that  steady,  dumb  ignoring  of  a  hostile 
neighbourhood,  and  once  even  the  writer  has  had 
to  resort  to  mock  combat  with  one  of  his  com- 
rades (this  at  a  street  corner  in  Penge)  in  order  to 
gather  a  crowd.  (It  is  a  regrettable  fact  of  human 
nature  that  no  Demosthenes  ever  fledged  could 
hold  a  British  crowd  against  a  dog  fight  round  the 
corner.)  In  one  case  when  our  brass-lunged 
orators  descended  upon  the  perennial  calm  of  an 
old-world  village  not  far  from  London  and  opened 
a  meeting  which  consisted  of  two  ducks  and  a  dog, 
the  villagers,  with  portentous  subtlety,  simply 
turned  out  and  turned  on  the  local  brass  band, 
8 


,  *  The  Man  on  the  Soap  Box  * 

which  with  two  muscular  drummers  and  a  pair 
of  leather-lunged  trombonists,  finally  stifled  the 
well  of  Socialist  eloquence,  from  which  Truth 
was  being  drawn  in  disregarded  bucketfuls.  All 
unawed  by  the  fact  that  in  the  magnificent  high- 
powered  automobile  which  that  day  had  replaced 
the  soap  box  as  pulpit,  there  stood  not  only  the 
gracious  presence  of  the  lady  to  whom  many  of 
the  stiflers  of  truth  probably  owed  rent  at  that 
moment — the  Countess  of  Warwick  herself  to 
wit,  but  also  the  man  with  the  chest  and  biceps 
of  a  navvy  who  could  have  knocked  out  any  man 
there  in  one-two  time — Mr  Jack  Jones,  the  present 
silver-tongued  member  for  Silvertown,  at  his  side 
a  well-known  London  journalist  and  a  clergyman 
in  Holy  Orders. 

And  then  one  is  transported  from  the  little 
village  with  its  audience  of  yokels  to  the  centre  of 
the  world's  metropolis — to  that  October  Sunday 
afternoon  in  1909,  when  R.  B.  Cunninghame- 
Graham  of  the  magic  pen,  standing  upon  the 
Trafalgar  Square  plinth,  which  has  become  the 
altar  of  democracy,  with  his  pointed  beard  and 
bushy  iron-gray  hair  carefully  brushed  back  from 
the  delicate  artist-face,  like  some  Vandyke  stepped 
from  its  frame,  is  haranguing  the  assembled 
thousands  at  the  meeting  of  protest  against  the 
execution  of  the  Spaniard,  Enrico  Ferrer.  What 
time  his  ancestor,  the  First  Charles,  sitting  upon 
that  fabulous  horse  to  his  right  rear,  looks  on  in 
stony  disapproval. 

And  once  more  the  writer  is  seated  with  him 
and  young  Victor  Grayson  in  an  open  taxi,  leading 

9 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

dirty,  dishevelled  democracy,  a  red  rag  on  the  end 
of  a  pole  flaunting  itself  drunkenly  at  its  head, 
down  Whitehall  and  round  to  Grosvenor  Gardens. 
Graham  waving  his  delicately  manicured  hand, 
with  the  tan  of  the  Algerian  desert  still  upon  it,  a 
knightly  figure  of  a  man,  Grayson  shouting,  the 
crowd  cheering,  and  the  writer  wondering  what 
devil  possessed  him  to  suggest  from  the  plinth  an 
assault  upon  the  Spanish  Embassy  and  what  was 
going  to  happen  next. 

Those  were  days  full  of  queer  extremes  and 
queer  situations.  There  was  the  experience  of  one 
of  our  best  known  propagandists,  a  highly  respect- 
able personage,  who  found  himself  after  a  meeting 
in  one  of  the  more  primitive  Welsh  mining  districts, 
dead  tired  and  praying  for  bed.  He  was  told  by 
his  host  to  go  straight  up,  that  he  would  find  his 
bed  in  the  far  corner,  and  *  would  he  be  good 
enough  to  lie  as  close  to  the  wall  as  possible  ?  * 
Slightly  obfuscated,  he  did  as  he  was  told  and  fell 
fast  asleep,  awaking  in  the  dawn  of  the  morning 
to  find  his  host's  wife  snoring  peacefully  on  the 
pillow  by  his  side  ! 

He  thought  of  his  reputation.  He  thought  of 
*  the  movement.*  A  cold  sweat  broke  out  upon 
him.  For  one  mortal  hour  he  lay  there,  afraid  to 
stir,  but  at  last  taking  his  courage  in  both  hands 
crept  over  the  prostrate  lady  and  had  just  reached 
the  floor  when  the  good  woman  awoke  to  say, 
smilingly:  *  Good  morning!  Willie's  gone  to  the 
pit.  I  suppose  you'll  be  dressing  now — it's  a  bit 
cold.' 

There  was  but  one  bed  in  that  cottage,  and  the 
xo 


*  The  Man  on  the  Soap  Box  ' 

miner,  honest  man,  himself  incapable  of  guile, 
thought  it  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  to 
sleep  three  in  a  bed.  Those  who  have  '  pro- 
paganded  '  in  certain  parts  of  Wales  will  be  able  to 
relate  experiences  nearly  as  strange. 

And  there  was  the  contrast  of  Warwick  Castle, 
with  its  time-embattled  towers  hanging  over  the 
Avon,  and  its  century-old  greens  and  armouries 
invaded  by  a  mass  of  Clarion  socialists,  respecting, 
some  of  them,  neither  God  nor  devil — only  man! 
And  the  armoured  Warwicks  are  staring  at  them 
like  the  men  of  iron  they  were,  and  the  peacocks 
have  folded  their  tails  in  horror;  and  the  ghost  of 
Caesar's  Tower  stands  gray  and  grim  in  stony 
silence  before  the  red  banners  of  twentieth  century 
democracy.     They  were  amazing  days. 

Like  some  cinema  film  there  passes  across  the 
retina  of  the  mind  that  extraordinary  assortment 
of  propaganding  humanity  of  those  days  and  of 
the  days  before  that,  all  moved,  whatever  their 
station  or  type,  by  the  passion  that  launched 
Buddha,  Mahomet,  and  Peter  the  Hermit  upon 
their   reluctant   worlds — the   passion   to   persuade. 

One  sees  them  in  lengthened  crusading  per- 
spective. William  Morris,  mediaevalist  and  poet, 
speaking  in  his  halting  sentences  from  his  heap  of 
slag  to  his  grimy-faced  auditors.  H.  M.  Hyndman 
— the  Social  Democrat  who  refused  a  ministership 
of  education  in  a  British  government,  *  for  con- 
science* sake  * — of  an  utter  Sunday  afternoon 
respectability,  top-hatted,  frock-coated,  bourgeois 
and  black,  orating  with  all  the  intellectual  force  and 
eloquence  of  which  he  still  is  master  to  a  crowd 

II 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

of  thirty  thousand  in  Trafalgar  Square,  knowing 
as  little  of  them  or  they  of  him  as  though  he  had 
dropped  from  Mars.  The  Countess  of  Warwick 
addressing  the  rag,  tag  and  bobtail  of  the  London 
streets  in  one  of  Paquin's  spring  *  creations.' 
John  Burns,  with  his  red  flag,  thundering  like 
Jove.  Philip  Snowden,  his  tongue  dipped  in 
corrosive  sublimate,  using  it  unerring  as  a 
surgeon  does  a  scalpel,  laying  bare  nerve  and 
bone.  Ramsay  MacDonald,  like  some  converted 
Machiavelli,  a  capable  fated  figure  of  fierce  eye 
and  cold  fire,  trying  to  plumb  the  shallows  of  the 
Saxon  intellect.  Victor  Grayson,  his  antithesis,  of 
*  broken  bottles  '  and  Colne  Valley  fame,  the 
Labour  movement's  greatest  propagandist,  with 
a  voice  like  the  Bull  of  Bashan,  flaming  meteorlike 
across  the  Red  firmament,  holding  all  in  the  hollow 
of  that  tremendous  voice  so  soon  to  be  extinguished. 
Keir  Hardie,  coming  in  at  the  tail  of  my  Belfast 
meeting  of  Orangemen  and  Nationalists,  steering 
his  way  unerringly  between  the  orange  Scylla  and 
the  green  Charybdis  which  gaped  for  him,  his  plaid 
bow  flaunting  itself  as  like  some  bard  of  old  he 
spoke  to  harp  invisible,  but  always  between  him 
and  his  audience  that  veil  of  strangeness  which 
prevented  any  from  getting  close  to  the  Father  of 
Labour.  Jim  Larkin,  now  languishing  in  American 
jails,  a  pillar  of  fire  and  ice,  with  fierce  blue  eye 
and  long  sheering  nose,  heading  our  march  like  a 
second  Cortes  to  the  sound  of  the  pipes  and  drum 
into  the  village  of  Swords,  near  Dublin,  *  pride  in 
his  port,  defiance  in  his  eye.'  Margaret  Bondfield, 
earnest  little  comrade,  staunch,  setting  her  eager, 

12 


*  The  Man  on  the  Soap  Box  * 

halting  feet  on  the  path  that  was  to  lead  her  to  the 
high  places  of  labour,  upon  which,  for  the  idealist, 
crosses  stand  in  waiting.  Her  friend,  Mary 
Macarthur,  hard  as  her  native  cairngorm,  with 
underneath  a  jealous,  passionate  heart,  addressing 
a  bevy  of  factory  girls,  first  ribald,  then  adoring. 
Robert  Blatchford,  writer  of  beautiful,  simple 
English,  author  of  Merrie  England  and  Britain  for 
the  British^  Socialism's  greatest  propaganda  litera- 
ture, for  all  his  sweeping  black  moustache  and 
swarth,  pirate  face,  speaking  in  shy,  halting  sentence 
for  the  '  Clarion  Scouts  '  at  the  Holborn  Town 
Hall,  surely,  and  excepting  H.  G.  Wells,  also 
Clarion  Scout,  the  poorest  speaker  in  the  move- 
ment. 

And,  last  of  all,  Bernard  Shaw,  with  his  boy-like 
figure,  all  nerve  and  vital  in  the  Irish  way,  making 
fun  of  his  audience,  himself,  and  all  the  world, 
with,  underneath,  the  most  serious  purpose  in  all 
the  movement  ;  and  following  him  the  barrel-like 
body  of  that  great  Cockney,  Will  Crooks — Quixote 
and  Sancho  Panza  come  to  life. 

And  then  those  two  unknown  dockers,  with 
broken  mouths  and  calloused  hands,  who  used  to 
walk  iron-shod  from  Millwall  to  the  West  End 
begging  for  God's  sake  for  a  few  socialist  leaflets 
to  distribute  to  their  pastors  and  masters — for  light 
still  came  from  the  East! 

But  all  of  them,  Saxon  and  Celt,  man  and  woman, 
often  vitally  opposed  upon  tactics,  often  virulently 
hating  one  another — all  consumed  by  a  sort  of 
sacred  fire — the  fire  of  the  propagandist. 

And  so  it  is  that    I  ask  myself  to-day  what  it 

13 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

was  that  we  assumed — for  our  assumptions  were 
tremendous  and  terrifying  ? 

We  assumed  that,  despite  differences  as  to 
tactics,  all  the  socialists  and  workers  not  only  of 
Great  Britain  but  of  the  world  stood  for  the  same 
thing  and  aimed  at  the  same  goal;  that  we  were 
on  the  threshold  of  a  new  era,  when,  if  the  socialist 
lion  was  not  to  lie  down  with  the  capitalist  lamb, 
the  lamb  was  to  be  eaten  by  the  lion  for  his  own 
good  and  digested  at  leisure;  that  the  Democracy 
would  advance  peacefully  and  steadily  by  education 
and  the  vote;  and,  that  last  strange  delusion,  that 
once  the  poverty  problem  was  solved,  all  our 
intellectual  and  spiritual  problems  would  be  solved 
with  it. 

We  had  but  to  blow  our  trumpets  seven  times 
outside  the  walls  of  the  capitalist  Jericho,  and  lo! 
the  walls  would  fall  and  it  would  be  transformed 
into  the  New  Jerusalem  with  streets  of  shining 
gold. 

For  behind  our  propaganda  was  the  most 
powerful  trinity  on  earth:  feeling  and  imagination 
and  passion.  It  was  a  trinity  aimed  at  the  belly 
in  order  to  reach  '  the  soul  of  the  crowd.'  We  at 
least  believed  that  the  path  to  the  soul  lay  through 
the  stomach! 

But  what  no  single  one  of  us  saw  was  that  the 
*  *ard  and  *orny  '  pioneers  of  the  soap  box  were  to 
be  replaced  by  Melton-coated  followers  in  ex- 
pensive halls,  travelling  in  comfortable  carriages, 
speaking  comfortable  words,  and  living  upon 
comforting  food.  What  we  did  not  see  was  that 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual  (although  we  never 
^4 


*  The  Man  on  the  Soap  Box  * 

used  the  word)  goal  of  the  poet,  William  Morris, 
the  writer,  Robert  Blatchford,  and  the  artist, 
Walter  Crane,  was  to  become  a  goal  of  *  more 
money  for  less  work.'  That  our  cry  of  *  Bread 
and  roses!  '  was  to  become  just  plain  *  Bread  and 
beer!  ' 

And  so  the  soap  box  is  passing,  and  with  it  the 
spirit  of  the  soap  box.  It  was  the  spirit  of  struggle, 
of  protest.  It  has  been  replaced  by  the  spirit  of 
success,  of  power,  of  plethora.  *  The  soul  of  the 
crowd  *  has  become  the  belly  of  the  crowd. 


15 


Ill 


THE    RED    INTERNATIONAL 


From  the  soap  box  to  the  Red  International  is  but 
a  step.  The  little  street  corner  meeting  in  a  London 
slum  is  but  the  national  nebula  of  the  international 
galaxy  of  fiery  stars — stars  often  moving  in  contrary 
orbits,  still  more  often  colliding,  but,  still,  forming 
that  loosely  knit  system  of  socialist  democracy 
throughout  the  world  known  as  the  Red  Inter- 
national, which,  before  the  war  of  19 14,  threatened 
to  dominate  the  earth,  but  which  has  now  been 
shattered    throughout    the    political    firmament. 

For  each  word  spoken,  each  leaflet  distributed, 
at  any  Labour  or  Socialist  meeting  in  any  country, 
spreads  like  a  wireless  message  in  multitudinous 
ramifications  to  the  farthest  corners  of  the  Red 
International. 

No  man  can  grasp  the  British  Labour  movement 
who  knows  nothing  of  its  international  significance, 
and  in  this  book,  although  primarily  concerned 
with  British  labour,  we  are  also  dealing  with  labour 
as  a  whole.  For  the  idea  behind  this  movement, 
as  all  other  labour  movements  throughout  the 
world,  is  the  international  idea.  The  masses  of 
the  workers  may  be,  and  are,  often  unconscious  of 
it,  but  it  is  this  idea  which  is  always  expressing 
itself  in  one  form  or  other. 

Men  everywhere  are  brothers.  At  least,  working 
x6 


*  The  Red  International  * 

men.  If  they  don't  love  one  another,  they  ought 
to  love  one  another,  nay,  more,  they  shall  love  one 
another,  even  if,  as  Lenin  has  decided,  they  have 
to  be  welded  together  by  blood  and  iron. 

The  British  labour  movement,  like  all  other 
labour  movements,  has  *  Socialism  '  as  its  ultimate 
goal.  The  Constitution  of  the  Labour  Party 
states  it  explicitly  in  the  'Party  Objects':  *  To 
secure  for  the  producers  by  hand  or  by  brain  the 
full  fruits  of  their  industry,  and  the  most  equitable 
distribution  thereof  that  may  be  possible,  upon  the 
basis  of  the  common  ownership  of  the  means  of 
production.  .  .  .'  It  seeks  alliance  with  the  workers 
of  the  world  in  the  ranks  of  the  'Red  International  ' 
against  the  present  competitive  system  of  society, 
that  is,  the  capitalist  system.  It  aims  at  the  gradual 
replacement  of  this  system  by  a  system  of  Socialism, 
or  co-operation.  *  Socialism  '  may  mean  anything 
to  the  labour  man,  according  as  to  whether  he  is 
tinted  a  pale  collectivist  pink  or  is  of  deep  crimson 
dyed  in  the  bolshevist  wool. 

It  may  mean,  for  instance,  *  the  mechanical 
state  *  of  collectivist  Socialism,  a  state  administered 
by  a  central  bureaucracy  through  a  horde  of 
officials,  and  the  last  adherents  of  which  are  possibly 
Mr  Sidney  Webb,  Mr  Bernard  Shaw,  and  their 
friend  the  enemy,  Mr  H.  M.  Hyndman,  although 
even  these  *  die-hards  '  must  have  had  their  views 
of  the  future  society  modified  by  the  facts  of  the 
last  seven  years.  (Already  Mr  Shaw  has  shown  in 
his  Back  to  Methuselah  that  he  has  become  partly 
converted  to  *  the  idea  of  God,'  which  indeed  is 
the  antidote  to  the  official.)     Or  it  may  mean  a 

17 


Labour  :   The  Giant  zvith  the  Feet  of  Clay 

vague,  benevolent  anarchy  of  the  Tolstoian  type 
in  which  the  official  will  have  no  existence.  But 
it  may  mean  a  dozen  other  things,  from  *  Guild  ' 
socialism — that  strange  mediaeval  reversion  which 
may  yet  profoundly  affect  the  modern  trade  union 
— to  simple  '  Labour  administration.' 

The  transient  phenomenon  of  Bolshevism,  it 
must  be  remembered,  is  only  a  means  to  an  end — 
not  an  end  in  itself.  It  is  a  method,  not  a  goal. 
Its  business  is  simply  *  to  hold  the  candle  to  the 
devil  *  by  advocating  *  the  dictatorship  of  the 
proletariat,'  that  is  the  dictatorship  of  society  by 
the  working-man,  that  is  *  autocracy,'  as  a  necessary 
intermediate  stage  to  the  *  bureaucratic  socialist ' 
millennium,  from  which,  incidentally,  socialists 
throughout  the  world  are  to-day  praying  to  be 
delivered.  Mr  Robert  Williams,  Secretary  of  the 
Transport  Workers'  Federation,  and,  whatever 
one  may  think  of  his  views,  one  of  the  few  absolutely 
whole-souled  labour  leaders,  makes  quite  clear  in 
one  of  his  books  what  this  *  dictatorship  *  may 
mean.  He  writes :  *  An  iron  discipline  will,  of 
course,  be  necessary  ...  in  the  transition  from 
Capitalism  to  Communism.' 

The  one  thing  which  unites  almost  all  shades 
of  socialism  and  labour  throughout  the  world  is 

*  communism,*  that  is  the  abolition  of  the  principle 
of  private  property  and  the  system  of  trading  for 

*  profit,*  and  the  holding  of  all  things,  save,  perhaps, 
toothbrushes,  in  common. 

There  have  been  three  *  Red  Internationals.* 
The  First  International  was  formed  in  London  in 
1864  under  the  title  of  The  International  Working 
18 


*  The  Red  International ' 

Men's  Association,  the  anarchist  Bakounin  and 
the  socialist  Karl  Marx  fighting  together  over  a 
period  of  many  years,  the  former  to  make  it  an 
anarchist-communist  International,  that  is,  an 
International  opposed  to  *  the  State  *  and  to  all 
government,  the  latter,  a  socialist  International, 
Marx  finally  triumphing,  the  First  International 
perishing  in  the  struggle  and  finally  expiring  in 
Philadelphia  in  1876.  The  Second  International 
came  into  being  in  1889  at  the  Paris  International 
Socialist  Congress,  and  had  at  one  time,  perhaps, 
some  twenty  millions  of  trade  unionists  and 
socialists  affiliated,  although  the  number  of  those 
in  sympathy  with  the  Red  International  has  been 
placed  as  high  as  fifty  millions.  The  Great  War 
shattered  this  second  dream  of  a  world  labour  party, 
the  Second  International  to-day  being  practically 
non-existent,  although  attempts  are  made  from 
time  to  time  to  galvanise  the  dead  into  life. 

The  Third  International,  known  as  the  Moscow 
International,  which  denounces  the  Second  Inter- 
national as  a  bourgeois  institution  '  whose  stinking 
body  pollutes  the  air,'  was  formed  by  Nicolai  Lenin 
after  the  recent  Russian  revolution  and  is  a  sort 
of  International  gamin^  stone-throwing  and  mud- 
slinging,  whose  hand  is  against  all  Socialists  who 
are  not  Bolshevists.  It  has  a  scattering  of  adherents 
in  the  *  Communist '  (the  modern  name  for  'Bol- 
shevist ')  parties  of  various  countries  but  it  is  no 
more  an  '  international '  than  are  the  Latter  Day 
Saints. 

All  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  at  its  1921 
meeting    in     Moscow    it    had    men    and    women 

19 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

delegates  not  only  from  all  the  white  countries 
but  from  Afghanistan,  Korea,  China,  and  even 
Samoyedes  from  the  Bering  Straits.  How  much 
some  of  the  semi-barbaric  Orientals  knew  of 
Communism  or  Karl  Marx  may  be  easily  imagined, 
if  not  described. 

What  the  Third  International  thinks  of  the 
Second  is  clearly  intimated  by  the  most  prominent 
adherent  of  the  Moscow  International  in  Great 
Britain,  Mr  Robert  Williams,  the  stormy  petrel 
of  the  Transport  Workers'  Federation.  He 
writes:  '  Men  who,  before  the  war,  had  predicted 
the  downfall  of  European  capitalism,  and  who  by 
lip-service  championed  the  cause  of  the  oppressed 
of  all  lands,  men  like  Hyndman,  Guesde,  Plekanov, 
Schiedemann,  and  Vandervelde,  delivered  the  death- 
blow to  that  International  during  the  period  of  the 
war.  Notwithstanding  the  palpable  recreancy,  not 
to  say  treachery  of  these  erstwhile  social  revolution- 
aries, these  class-war  advocates,  others  remained 
loyal  to  the  cause  of  international  working-class 
solidarity.'  But  alas!  Mr  Robert  Williams  has 
now  been  expelled  from  the  Communist  Party 
because  even  he  has  not  been  extreme  enotigh  for 
the  terrible  Third.  Now  a  '  Fourth  *  International, 
called  the  International  Association  of  Socialist 
parties,  is  just  putting  up  its  infantile  head  at 
Vienna,  appearing  to  regard  all  the  other  Inter- 
nationals as  anathema     And  so  it  goes. 

This  Third  International  of  Moscow  rose 
phcenix-like  from  the  ashes  of  the  second,  but  is  a 
bird  of  a  very  different  variety — at  first  an  eagle 
of  liberty  to  herald  raucously  the  advent  of  an  age 

20 


*  The  Red  International  * 

• 

of  freedom,  but  to  develop,  as  time  went  on,  into 
the  simulacrum  of  its  predecessor,  the  double- 
headed  eagle  of  Czardom,  a  bird  which  speaks 
with  two  voices,  the  voices  of  autocracy  and 
democracy,  with  always  underneath  the  talons  of 
dictatorship.  And  like  its  predecessor,  it  has 
developed  its  agents  -provocateurs^  its  spies,  and  all 
the  other  appurtenances  of  dictatorship.  The  new 
age  was  one  in  which  Nicolai  Lenin  had  but 
replaced  Nikolai  Romanoff:  both  of  them  desper- 
ately sincere  fanatics,     he  rot  est  mort.    Vive  le  roi  ! 

To  one  who,  like  the  writer,  took  part  in  various 
International  Socialist  Congresses,  to  which  the 
Trade  Unions  and  Socialist  parties  of  Great 
Britain  as  of  the  world  sent  their  delegates  as  to  the 
supreme  executive  of  Labour,  our  facile  assumption 
that  throughout  the  world,  labour,  united  funda- 
mentally, stood  for  the  same  thing  and  worked 
towards  the  same  goal  seems  to-day  frankly  in- 
credible. Yet  not  one  of  us  saw  its  inherent  falsity. 
We  were  blind,  leaders  of  the  blind,  and  we  both 
fell  together  into  the  ditch  digged  for  our  feet  by 
the  War  of  19 14. 

I  think  we  ignored  almost  everything  that  was 
vital  in  humanity  as  we  ignored  everything  that 
was  inconvenient  to  our  theories.  Some  of  us, 
because  we  are  human  and  hate  to  admit  that  we 
have  partly  builded  upon  false  foundation,  are  still 
ignoring  and  still  hug  our  delusions.  Our  assump- 
tions sprang,  however,  from  an  idealism  and  a 
fanaticism  which  refused  to  face  facts,  as  fanatics, 
perhaps  fortunately  for  evolution,  have  always 
refused  to  face  them. 

L.    .  C  21 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

There  was  the  famous  International  Congress 
of  Stuttgart  of  1907  at  which  we  had  not  only- 
delegates  from  nearly  every  country  of  the  Old 
and  New  worlds,  but  also  Japanese  and  Indians — 
the  congress  which  was  to  be  the  *  Open  Sesame  * 
to  the  International  Labour  Millennium.  We 
already  saw  shining  above  us  the  Red  Flag,  and 
beyond  it  that  Fata  Morgana  of  Internationalism, 
the  Palace  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Man, 
over  the  lintel  of  which  was  written:  'Through 
blood  to  brotherhood.'  But  even  then,  there  were 
some  of  us,  not  leaders,  children  watching  their 
elders,  and,  like  all  children,  taking  notes  and 
critical. 

We  were  assuming  at  Stuttgart,  as  at  all  those 
other  congresses  past  and  to  come,  that  the  stolid 
German  Marxist,  the  sceptical  French  analyst, 
the  soft-hearted  English  sentimentalist,  the  Irish 
individualist,  the  Danish  materialist,  the  Indian 
dreaming  God  knows  what  dreams  in  the  twilight 
of  the  gods  that  is  the  Asiatic  mind,  the  impulsive, 
unpractical  Russian,  and  the  smiling,  inscrutable 
Japanese  (for  none  of  us  knew  anything  about 
him)  ...  all  stood  for  the  same  thing  if  they  did 
not  always  think  the  same  way. 

For  we  saw  the  immediate  goal  of  the  flesh,  the 
goal  of  the  full  belly,  common  to  all  hungry 
humanity.  What  we  did  not  see  were  those  distant, 
shadowy  goals  which  are  not  of  the  earth  but  of 
the  things  behind  the  earth — not  of  the  flesh  but 
the  spirit — the  goals  which  divide  mankind  un- 
erringly and  everlastingly.  We  forgot  that  '  man 
does  not  live  by  bread  alone.'  It  is  what,  despite 
22 


,  *  The  Red  International ' 

all  its  fine  phrases  and  very  real  idealism,  the  Red 
International  has  always  forgotten — what  the  British 
Labour  Party  to-day  is  forgetting. 

Our  innocence,  like  our  courage,  was  dazzling! 

Tactics,  of  course,  might  separate  us — but 
they  were  just  *  tactics  ' — those  tactics  which 
really  were  vital  because  they  were  *  tempera- 
ment.' Keir  Hardie  and  Bebel — Celt  and  Teuton; 
Ramsay  MacDonald,  Scot,  and  Malatesta,  revolu- 
tionist; Herbert  Burrows,  theosophist,  and  Robert 
Blatchford,  determinist;  Bernstein  and  Bissolati; 
Labriola  and  Larkin;  Roubanovitch  and  Plech- 
anofF,  Victor  Grayson,  Philip  Snowden  and  H.  M. 
Hyndman ;  Madame  Sorgue,  syndicalist,  *  the 
most  dangerous  woman  in  Europe,'  with  her 
Buffalo  Bill  hat  and  crimson  corsage  splashing  the 
congresses  of  European  labour;  Mr  and  Mrs 
Sydney  Webb  with  George  Bernard  Shaw,  a  star 
chained  to  their  triumphal  waggon;  Emile  Vander- 
velde;  Victor  Adler,  and  heaven  alone  knows  what 
other  olla  podrida  of  this  witches'  pot  of  Inter- 
nationalism— all  were,  however  mistakenly !  working 
towards  the  brotherhood  of  man,  if  not  the 
fatherhood  of  God. 

God,  of  course,  didn't  matter.  Some  of  us 
believed  in  him — some  did  not.  Anyhow,  he  was 
a  national  god  and  no  national  god  was  going  to 
get  into  our  international  socialist  movement. 
Society  had  suffered  so  much  from  priest  and  church 
in  alliance  with  statesman  that  we  had  to  get  rid 
of  the  Idea  of  God — at  least  in  the  beginning. 
To  those  of  us  who  believed  in  secret,  God  some- 
how or  other  would  assert  himself  in  due  course 

23 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

when  every  little  Mary  Ann  and  Tommy  had  three 
meals  a  day  and  a  clean  pocket  handkerchief  to 
wipe  their  dear  little  noses  on.  .  .  . 

Nationality  and  nationalism  were  effete  ideas — 
capitalist  superstitions.  Of  course,  they  were  also 
inconvenient  facts,  but  they  were  passing.  Race 
— well,  race  was  another  and  still  more  unpleasant 
fact — but  the  heart  of  the  Yellow  Man  was  the 
same  as  the  heart  of  the  Brown  or  the  Red  or  the 
White — only  more  so  1 

And  yet  even  those  early  days  of  Stuttgart, 
with  its  kaleidoscope  of  temperament  and  colour 
and  its  bewilderingly  varied  concept  of  morals, 
individual  and  national,  might  have  given  us  pause 
as  •  the  Copenhagen  International  Congress  of 
1 910  with  its  fierce  battles  and  recriminations 
between  the  little  nations  of  Central  Europe — 
the  writing  on  the  wall  for  those  with  eyes  to  see, 
foreshadowing  the  bloody  events  of  19 14 — might 
have  given  us  pause. 

Yet  with  all  those  ridiculous  sides,  with  all  our 
lack  of  understanding  of  human  beings,  with  all 
our  mutual  hates  and  quarrellings  and  the  wire- 
pullings of  ambition  which  we  had  taken  over  as 
inheritance  from  our  pastors  and  masters — there  was 
something  very  wonderful,  something  symbolical, 
about  that  ghostly  forerunner  of  the  Parliament 
of  the  World. 

Dreamers  of  dreams.     But  at  least  we  dreamt. 

One  can  still  see  down  the  vista  of  congresses, 
national  and  international,  Bebel's  pale,  thoughtful 
face,  feel  that  cool,  steady  clasp  of  his  hand  and 
hear  him  declare  that  future  wars  were  impossible 
24 


*  The  Red  International  * 

because  the  Fatherland  itself  could  not  bring  its 
mail-clad  millions  even  to  the  frontier  without 
inviting  national  bankruptcy!  And  little,  dark, 
fiery  Marie  Luxembourg,  in  her  white  dress  in 
the  clean  air  of  Copenhagen,  with  something  of 
the  hunchback  in  her  face,  all  unconscious  that 
the  day  was  nearly  on  her  when,  like  a  rat  given 
to  the  dogs,  she  would  be  torn  to  pieces  in  the 
streets  by  her  own  countrymen  and  perhaps  by 
her  own  comrades.  And  Clara  Zetkin  of  the 
motherly  bosoms  and  the  great  expansive  mouth 
is  driving  with  me  once  more  in  a  London  hansom, 
telling  me  of  her  hopes  and  fears  for  the  Inter- 
national Socialism  that  was  to  her  life  itself.  Old 
Singer,  giant  and  millionaire,  is  once  more  presiding 
with  heavy  effectiveness  over  our  Franchise  Com- 
mission in  the  mellow  German  sunlight  at  the 
Stuttgart  Liederhalle;  Jaures,  great  bull  of  a  man, 
is  flinging  out  the  smoke  and  lava  of  his  burning 
periods;  and  Madame  Kama,  dusky  pioneer  of 
Indian  unity,  is  holding  up  upon  the  platform  of 
the  Stuttgart  congress  the  *  Bande  Mataram  * 
flag  of  a  united  India  with  the  layered  colours  of 
Mohammedan  and  Hindu  and  Parsee  and  Buddhist, 
the  sun  playing  upon  it  through  the  high  windows. 
And  the  Germans  are  laughing  at  us  as  we  sing  our 
war-chant,  'The  Red  Flag,'  because  it  is  the  tune 
of  a  Catholic  hymn  in  the  Fatherland,  the  land 
where  Socialism  means  materialism — and  we  are 
hurt  and  puzzled.  And  I  am  looking  once  more 
at  Harry  Quelch  of  the  Social  Democratic  Federa- 
tion, like  an  honest  watchdog  who  has  learnt  his 
old   lessons    so   well    that    he   cannot   learn    new, 

25 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

reproaching  us  in  the  Concert  Palais  at  Copenhagen 
for  voting  for  his  b^te  noire^  Ramsay  MacDonald, 
for  the  chairmanship  of  the  British  section.     And 

*  Big '    Bill    Haywood,    *  boss  *    of  the    American 

*  I.W.W.',  now  colleague  of  Lenin  in  Moscow, 
a  heavy-paunched,  leather-belted  giant,  one  empty 
eye-socket  covered  by  the  slouch  of  his  great 
desperado  hat,  is  sitting  on  the  iron  stretcher- 
bed  in  the  little  Copenhagen  hotel,  to  tell  me  of 
his  contempt  for  the  constitutionalists  and  his  faith 
in  *  direct  action,'  what  time  the  bed,  complaining 
to  heaven  under  the  280  lbs.  of  his  weight,  con- 
templates direct  action  on  its  own  account  by 
indirect  collapse.  And  Sorguc,  like  a  second 
Cassandra,  is  wallowing  in  dreadful  anarchistical 
prophecies  of  the  coming  shattering  of  the  Inter- 
national through  the  politicians — and,  like  her 
prototype,   is  not  believed. 

And  Vaillant,  gallant  old  son  of  the  Commune, 
is  peering  with  blinded  eyes  at  new  comrades  and 
strange  policies,  whilst  the  Russians — little  whole- 
souled  Madame  Balabanov,  polyglot  and  exile, 
and  the  beautiful  Kollontay,  both  now  in  the 
Bolshevik  Moscow  administration,  are  trying  vainly 
to  bridge  the  temperamental  and  intellectual  chasms 
which  cut  them  off  from  their  British  comrades; 
Sam  Gompers,  like  a  wise  old  frog,  hater  of  Socialism 
and  *  all  things  to  all  men,'  is  explaining  to  me 
owl-like  in  the  streets  of  Ipswich  after  a  Labour 
congress  to  which  he  has  come  like  some  imperial 
demagogue  attended  by  a  cohort  of  *  fraternal 
delegates,'  how  wise  he  is  and  how  foolish  are  his 
opponents    and    what    a    wonderful    thing    is    the 


*  The  Red  International ' 

American  Federation  of  Labour ;  and  Keir  Hardie, 
the  young  man  with  the  old  face,  clean-cut  and 
hard  as  a  piece  of  Aberdeen  grantite,  is  singing 
'  Annie  Laurie  '  in  Stuttgart  to  half  the  nations 
of  Europe  who  are  wondering  what  the  devil  he 
would  be  at. 

And  there  is  Daniel  de  Leon,  that  mad  quixotc 
from  the  New  World,  an  extinct  volcano,  speaking 
of  dead  policies  to  ears  unheeding;  and  Gustave 
Herve  the  Toulouse  professor,  fiercest  pacifist  in 
Europe,  afterwards  its  fiercest  patriot,  in  a  German 
railway  carriage,  his  luggage  a  cake  of  soap  and  an 
unused  toothbrush,  is  laying  his  weary  head  upon 
the  broad  bosom  of  a  woman  comrade,  to  fall 
asleep  like  a  tired  child;  and  Maxim  Gorki, 
pallid,  coming  out  from  the  Brotherhood  Church 
of  the  New  Southgate  Road,  in  which,  as  in  another 
ark,  the  Second  Duma,  fleeing  across  the  European 
wastes,  has  found  resting  place  for  the  soles  of  its 
feet,  weary  from  the  inextricable  mind  and  ever- 
lasting talk  of  his  countrymen — that  serpent  head, 
flattened,  suggestive,  contrasting  with  the  delicate 
oval  of  the  lady  by  his  side — the  actress  who  is  his 
wife.  And  Emile  Vandervelde,  chairman  of  the 
International,  minister  of  his  country,  is  sawing 
the  air  with  the  gesture  known  to  a  hundred 
congresses;  and  there  is  the  death's  head  of 
Plekanov,  Marxian  Torquemada,  lost  in  the 
forests  of  dogma,  and  Anatole  France,  benevolently 
saturnine,  unheralded  and  unknown  in  the  insularity 
of  the  London  Opera  House,  is  asking,  gently 
ironic,  if  he  may  be  permitted  to  find  the  platform 
upon  which  he  is  to  be  the  chief  speaker;    and 

27 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Hyndman,  with  his  cliff-like  forehead  cut  off  by 
its  materialistic  plateau,  '  the  Grand  Old  Man  of 
Socialism.' 

I  am  looking  at  them  all. 

And  to  think  to-day  that  all  these  men  and 
women,  blind,  leaders  of  the  blind,  scattered  to 
the  four  quarters  of  the  world  to-day,  their  Red 
International  a  by-word,  broken  in  policy,  many 
of  them  enemies  avowed — were  held  together  by 
but  two  things,  yet  the  strongest  things  in  the 
world — love  and  hate:  their  hatred  for  capitalism 
and,  something  even  deeper,  their  love  for  humanity. 

It  is  because  of  that  last  that  history  will  deal 
leniently  with  them,  and,  if  it  does  not  show  the 
halo,  it  will  at  least  show  the  thorns. 


28 


IV 


HOW    THE    WORKING    MAN    THINKS 

He  doesn't! 

That  would  be  the  easiest  and  most  obvious 
way  of  dealing  with  the  title  of  this  chapter.  But 
it  would  not  be  the  most  accurate.  It  needs 
qualification. 

The  fact  is  that  only  a  tiny  percentage  of  human 
beings  in  any  class  are  capable  of  conscious  thought. 
The  British  working  man  is  no  exception.  Yet 
he  has  his  way  of  thinking,  and  to  understand  the 
British  labour  movement  means  the  understanding 
of  the  British  worker's  psychology. 

Here  we  are  speaking  of  the  broad  mass  of 
English  working  men,  though  something  of  what 
we  say  will  also  apply  to  the  Celtic  fringe,  excepting 
the  Irish  part  of  it.  For  Ireland,  in  Labour,  as  in 
all  else,  has  ever  had  her  own  channels  of  develop- 
ment. 

The  two  chief  leaders  of  the  Irish  Labour  Party 
said  to  the  writer  in  that  much  battered  building, 
Liberty  Hall,  Dublin,  in  1920:  'The  British 
Labour  Party  does  not  understand  us  at  all.  Our 
labour  movement  is  another  kind  of  movement. 
We  have  another  way  of  thinking.' 

Jim  Larkin,  once  Irish  labour's  uncrowned 
king,  repeatedly  voiced  to  the  writer,  when  he  was 
speaking  with  him  from  Irish  Transport  Workers* 

29 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

platforms  in  19 13,  the  direct  hostility  of  Irish 
Labour  to  the  *  materialism  '  of  the  British  Labour 
Party :  *  as  if  we  had  no  soul — only  belly !  '  he 
said,  with  cold  contempt  in  his  steel  blue  eye. 

The  broad  cleavage  between  the  psychology  of 
the  British  worker  (using  the  word  *  British  * 
with  the  preceding  qualification)  and  that  of  his 
continental  brother,  is  that  the  British  worker 
*  has  no  use  for  *  abstract  thinking.  Abstractions 
irritate  him.  Partly  because  he  himself  is  a  simple, 
sentimental,  good-natured  fellow,  swung  by  heart, 
who  vaguely  feels  himself  handicapped  when  first 
principles  are  being  discussed.  The  intellectual 
process  he  ignores.  The  passing  of  resolutions, 
which  he  mistakes  for  *  action,'  he  understands. 
What  he  calls  '  facts '  he  understands.  Those 
things  belong  to  the  soothing  syrup  of  *  practical 
politics,'  a  term  which,  always  in  his  mouth,  covers 
a  multitude  of  sins  and  saves  a  lot  of  thinking. 

So  far  as  resolutions  are  concerned,  I  am  prepared 
to  say  that  the  average  trades  unionist  would 
cheerfully  kill  his  grandmother  by  resolution  and 
salve  his  conscience  afterwards  by  the  satisfying 
reflection  that  the  resolution  to  do  away  with  the 
old  lady  had  been  passed  by  *  an  overwhelming 
majority!  *  My  only  doubts  come  from  the 
reflection  that  he  would  probably  stop  at  passing 
the  resolution  and  then  do  nothing. 

The  abstract  methods  of  thought  of  continental 
labour  the  British  worker  regards,  when  he  thinks 
about  them,  as,  just  *  abstractions,'  and  it  is  to-day 
literally  true  to  say  that,  despite  half  a  century  of 
Internationalism  and  international  labour  congresses, 
30 


How  the  Working  Man  Thinks 

the  psychology  of  the  French  or  German  or 
Scandinavian  worker,  with  their  theories  of  Social- 
ism and  consciousness  of  aim,  not  to  mention  the 
American  worker,  is  as  much  an  enigma  to-day, 
not  only  to  the  rank  and  file,  but  to  most  of  the 
leaders  of  British  labour,  as  it  was  when  the  First 
International  was  formed. 

That  is  why  the  British  Trades  Unionist  is  still 
practically  the  only  trades  unionist  in  Europe  who 
takes  little  real  interest  in  Socialist  theory,  or,  for 
that  matter,  in  Socialism  itself,  as  he  is  almost  the 
only  worker  who  does  not  call  himself  '  Socialist  * 
or  *  Social  Democrat,'  even  when  affiliated  through 
the  Labour  Party  to  the  Socialist  International. 
He  fears,  hazily,  such  intellectual  labelling.  Labour 
on  the  continent,  save  the  *  Yellow '  unions  of 
*  Christian  Socialists,*  etc.,  means  Socialism.  Here 
it  means  almost  anything  else.  It  can  be  proved 
by  asking  the  first  hundred  workmen  one  meets  if 
they  are  socialists,  and  if  so,  why  } 

Even  when  he  goes  on  strike,  he  does  so  as 
water  flows  and  grass  grows,  without  conscious 
aim  or  method. 

But  it  is  only  right  to  say  that  the  British  worker, 
when  he  is  not  a  Welshman,  is  also  an  enigma  to 
his  continental  or  even  to  his  American  brother. 
One  of  the  foreign  delegates  present  at  one  of 
the  bitterest  discussions  between  miners'  leaders 
and  coal-owners  in  the  1921  strike  negotiations, 
expressed  his  amazement  at  the  fact  that,  after 
Mr  Herbert  Smith,  President  of  the  Miners' 
Federation,  and  an  absolutely  honest  fighter  for 
his   class,   had   been   snapping   the   heads   off  the 

31 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

owners  across  the  arbitration  table,  he  responded 
genially  and  readily  to  one  of  the  *  hated  master- 
class,' when  that  gentleman  called  out  to  him  as 
he  was  leaving  the  room :  '  Come  here,  Herbert,' 
Mr  Smith  engaging  in  amiable  and  laughing 
conversation.  *  But  what  does  it  all  mean  ? '  the 
intelligent  foreigner  asked  in  bewilderment.  *  That 
sort  of  thing  could  only  happen  in  England  where 
nothing  is  as  one  expects.' 

But  the  quality  which  redeems  so  many  intellectual 
shortcomings  in  the  make-up  of  the  British  worker 
is  his  sense  of  humour.  Every  Labour  Congress 
can — and  for  this  the  gods  be  thanked! — at  any 
moment  become  a  circus.  At  a  certain  Labour 
Party  congress,  a  speaker,  portentous,  boring, 
began  one  of  his  periods  with:  *  Speaking  of 
Ireland  as  a  whole  .  .  . '  Instantly  the  delegate  of 
the  Musicians'  Union  from  his  seat  in  the  gallery 
sprang  up  to  what  he  called  *  a  point  of  order  and 
another  injustice  to  Ireland:  '  *  Mr  Chairman,* 
he  said  with  terrific  solemnity,  *  who  is  it  that 
dares  to  call  Ireland  "  a  hole  "  }  ' 

There  is  nothing  the  British  worker  loves  so 
much  as  amiable  vagueness,  unless  it  be  its  first 
cousin — compromise.  He  positively  revels  in  his 
congresses  as  in  his  branch  meetings  in  such  terms 
as  *  brotherhood,'  *  love,'  *  fraternal  greetings,' 
etc.,  and  his  respect  for  the  authority  of  *  the  chair  * 
is  not  inferior  to  his  respect  for  his  God.  There  is 
nothing  he  shies  at  more  than  theory,  pluming 
himself  upon  being  '  practical,'  which  is  one  reason 
why  he  abhors  *  programmes,'  and  why  even 
to-day  the  British  Labour  Party  has  no  real 
32 


How  the  Working  Man  Thinks 

programme  in  the  sense  of  national  concentration 
upon  certain  goals  and  in  spite  of  the  Labour  Party's 
*  New  Social  Order  '  policy  of  ambitious  vagueness 
as  adopted  at  the  conference  of  June,  191 8.  In 
some  of  which  there  is,  however,  something  of  real 
good. 

All  this  has  its  origin  not  only  in  the  poverty  of 
the  British  worker's  intellectual  equipment,  but 
in  part  at  least  in  that  *  religious '  spirit  which  one 
can  say  after  experience  of  most  of  the  European 
workers  is  peculiar  to  the  Britisher  and  which,  in 
a  sense,  really  does  justify  Mr  Ramsay  MacDonald's 
use  many  years  ago  of  the  term  *  British  Socialism,' 
defining  it  as  a  special  brand  or  *  school.'  Many 
of  us  then  hotly  resented  such  labellings.  Socialism 
was  the  same  thing  all  the  world  over.  We  did  not 
want  *  tinned  Socialism ; '  we  wanted  the  inter- 
national stew-pot.     But  we  were  wrong. 

It  is  the  religious  spirit,  referred  to  later,  which 
often  makes  the  average  labour  congress  a  sort  of 
modified  church  service,  but  with  a  rigid  ritual 
of  its  own,  a  ritual  of  negation  rather  than  afHrma- 
tion— of  what  you  may  not  do  rather  than  of  what 
you  may.  For  the  labour  congress,  like  the  trade 
union  branch  meeting,  has  its  ritual  of  *  good  form,' 
as  ruthless  as  that  of  Eton  or  Westminster,  which 
is  one  reason  perhaps  why  the  average  trades 
unionist  when  M.P.  so  quickly  '  acquires  the  tone 
of  the  House.' 

The  reason,  and  the  only  reason  why,  apart 
from  the  propaganda  itself,  the  gallant  pioneers 
of  British  socialism,  the  old  Social  Democratic 
Federation  failed  in  their  appeal  to  the  working  man 

33 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

was  their  complete  lack  of  understanding  of  his 
psychology.  Their  propaganda  broke  upon  three 
things — the    Britisher's    absolute    simplicity,    his 

*  religiousness,'  and  that  sentimentality  which 
prevents  him  ever  getting  to  grips  with  unpleasant 
facts.  The  British  workman  is  sentimental.  He 
is  not  emotional — another  quality  altogether.  The 
Frenchman,  like  the  Irishman,  is  intensely 
emotional  and  entirely  unsentimental.  It  is  the 
difference  between  Marshal  Foch  and  George 
Lansbury. 

It  was,  I  think,  faithful  Jack  Williams,  the  one 
time  famous  leader  of  London's  unemployed  and 
a  pioneer  of  the  Social  Democratic  Federation, 
who  told  me  that,  in  their  innocence,  he  and  his 
comrades,  with  whom,  in   1886,  he  was  tried  for 

*  sedition  and  inciting  to  violence  '  at  the  historic 
Trafalgar  Square  meeting — ^John  Burns,  Harry 
Champion,  and  Henry  Mayers  Hyndman  (all  still 
alive),  who  with  the  other  pioneer  socialists  could 
have  been  put  into  a  four-wheeled  cab,  believed 
they  had  only  to  go  out  to  the  street  corner  with 
their  appeal  of  *  scientific  socialism  '  in  order  to 
convert  the  British  workman  without  further  ado. 
Their  appeal  was  to  be  head,  not  heart.  They 
had  only  to  explain  to  their  countrymen  *  the 
gospel  according  to  St  Marx  * — for  it  was  upon 
the  economic  doctrine  of  Karl  Marx,  the  gifted 
German  Hebrew,  with  his  *  materialist  conception 
of  history,*  upon  which  the  *  S.D.F.'  pioneers 
founded  the  faith  that  was  in  them — who  would 
at  once  see  the  beauties  of*  surplus  value,*  *  exchange 
value,'  and  the  other  terms  of  the  Marxian  dogma. 
34 


How  the  tVorking  Man  Thinks 

For  in  those  early  days  of  Socialism  the  economic 
dogma  had  but  replaced  the  priestly. 

As  a  matter  of  record,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the 
*  S.D.F.',  in  the  ranks  of  which  the  writer  worked 
for  some  years,  ever  had  more  than  20,000  on  its 
membership  roll  and  whether  more  than  a  few 
hundred  working  men  at  most  ever  knew  what  the 
socialist  *  high-brows  *  were  talking  about.  Perhaps 
they  did  not  always  know  it  themselves! 

It  was  because  the  Independent  Labour  Party, 
formed  in  1893,  recognised  these  facts  and  made 
its  appeal  to  the  heart  and  not  to  the  brain,  in  the 
first  instance,  that  it  met  with  almost  immediate 
success,  leading  ultimately  to  the  formation  of  the 
British  Labour  Party  with  its  millions  of  to-day, 
and  to  *  independent  labour  representation '  in 
the  House  of  Commons. 

All  movements,  whether  in  the  mob  or  the  man, 
have  their  inception  in  the  heart,  as  any  one  who 
has  worked  in  great  movements  knows.  What  is 
first  felt  in  the  furnace  of  the  heart  may  afterwards 
be  annealed  in  the  tempering  chamber  of  the 
brain,  but  that  is  a  process  which  comes  long  after. 
This  is  true  of  all  countries  to  a  point,  but  especially 
true  of  England  where,  in  the  working  man,  heart 
dominates  brain. 

In  all  this  there  is  a  lesson  for  *  comrade  Lenin,' 
who,  despite  his  sometimes  preternatural  shrewd- 
ness, had  up  to  recently  almost  the  same  ideas  of 
the  British  worker's  psychology  that  the  Social 
Democratic  Federation  pioneers  had  of  it.  The 
Bolshevist  or  Communist  propaganda  is  going 
ultimately  to  fail  in  this  country  just  because  of 

35 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

the  facts  given  above,  and  it  is  just  these  facts 
which  are  the  reason  why  in  Russia  itself  Bolshevism 
has  been  forced  to  revert  to  '  State  Capitalism.* 
The  British  worker  is  no  revolutionist  because  he 
is  sentimentalist.  The  sentimentalist  instinctively 
hates  *  direct  action.'  Celtic  sections  of  him  may 
sometimes  talk  revolution  or  even  get  to  the  point 
of  acting  revolution — but  as  a  whole  the  British 
worker  will  reject  Lenin's  Marxian  dogma  just 
as  he  will  reject  Lenin's  barricade.  But  he  will 
do  it  because  he  feels  not  that  way.  Not  because 
he  thinks  that  way. 

Given  Trafalgar  Square,  a  crowd  of  twenty 
thousand,  and  a  band  playing  *  The  Red  Flag,'  and 
the  Anglo-Saxon  trades  unionist,  his  big  heart 
filled  to  overflowing,  will  pass  resolutions  until 
Gabriel  blows  his  trumpet,  but  the  day  the 
Revolution  comes  and  the  barricades  go  up  in  the 
Square,  there  will  be  nobody  to  man  them. 

It  is  the  same  qualities  which  make  the  British 
trades  unionist  the  hero-worshipper  of  hero- 
worshippers.  He  must  have  somebody  to  worship. 
*  Tried,  trusted  and  true,'  that  banal  trinity  of 
election  posters,  is  still  the  id^a  behind  the  British 
trades  unionist's  devotion  to  leaders  :  that,  and 
the  fear  of  hurting  a  man's  feelings  by  not  re- 
electing him.  Also,  one  other  reason.  It  saves 
thinking. 

That  is  why  congress  after  congress  he  will  return 
the  *  old  hands,'  even  after  the  '  old  hands  '  have 
failed  him  again  and  again,  and  even  after  the  rank 
and  file  who  elect  them  have  long  since  parted 
company  with  the  policies  of  their  leaders.  *  Give 
36 


How  the  Working  Man  Thinks 

them  another  chance!  '  It  is  so  strong  that  even 
recent  revolts  against  the  decisions  of  the  leaders 
in  the  industrial  field,  with  the  gradual  domination 
of  leaders  by  led,  and  save  perhaps  amongst  the 
Welsh  miners,  have  not  prevented  their  re-election 
when  it  came  to  the  question  of  what  in  the  mind 
of  the  rebels  was,  *  Getting  on  or  getting  out!  * 
It  is  the  British  workman's  sentimentality  and 
good  nature  over  again.  It  has  cost  him  dear  within 
the  last  ten  years  and  it  is  going  to  cost  him  dearer. 

It  was  the  revolt  against  this  worship  of  *  dead 
men  who  don't  know  they  are  dead,'  which,  during 
the  war,  partly  led  to  the  Shop  Stewards'  movement 
for  workshop  control  and  the  men's  rejection  of 
centralised  administration,  which  has  become  a 
feature  of  our  times,  although  a  feature  now  not  so 
militant  as  it  has  been,  in  all  of  which  the  worker 
has  but  stepped  out  of  the  frying  pan  into  the  fire. 
He  has  but  exchanged  stodgy  bureaucracy  for  the 
anarchy  of  *  go  as  you  please,*  and  because,  still 
lacking  self-control  and  self-developement,  he  has 
never  learnt  the  via  media  of  organisation  with 
liberty,  he  is  likely  to  swing  back  completely  to  his 
old  mechanical  policy  of  'follow  my  leader.' 

But  all  this  is  only  a  minority  movement,  and 
even  now  the  signs  are  not  wanting  of  *  reversion 
to  type.'  The  workman  will  soon  get  tired  of  his 
Bolshevist  fling — a  Highland  fling  where  it  has 
not  been  a  Welsh  reel — and  outside  Wales  and 
parts  of  Scotland  he  is  rapidly  passing  back  under 
the  control  of  the  benevolent  bureaucracy  into 
which  the  labour  movement  is  crystallising.  His 
mentality  does  not  essentially  change,  nor,  despite 
L.  D  37 


Labour :    The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

the  great  improvement  in  his  physical  conditions, 
has  it  vitally  changed  during  the  last  decade. 

In  a  word,  despite  the  phrases  by  which  he  has 
always  seduced  himself,  phrases  of  '  International- 
ism,* *  international  understanding,*  *  brotherhood,* 
etc.,  and  despite  his  resolutions  interminable,  the 
Labour  leaders  are  faced  with  the  fact  to-day  that 
the  British  worker  is  still,  not  violently,  but  quietly, 
surely,  insular  and  national,  fundamentally  un- 
changed in  the  mass  throughout  the  years.  The 
Great  War  proved  it  to  the  hilt.  And  it  will  be 
proved  once  more  when  the  next  Great  War  comes. 
Nor  does  one  think  that  it  troubles  them  exceedingly. 

Against  this  fact  even  the  International  gods 
fight  in  vain.  And  the  gods  of  British  labour 
are  still  national,  not  international — at  their  head 
Jehovah,  not  Marx. 

Robert  Blatchford  once  said  to  me  in  his  her- 
metically sealed  study  at  Heme  Hill,  whilst  he 
puffed  at  his  beloved  calabash,  that  '  the  thing  that 
was  troubling  the  factory  girl  was  not  either  the 
downtrodden  proletariat  or  the  theory  behind 
International  Socialism,  but  what  she  was  going 
to  put  into  her  stomach  and  what  the  Duke  said 
to  the  Duchess  in  the  conservatory  after  dinner.' 

Which,  in  the  mass,  is  also  still  true  of  the  British 
working  man. 


38 


THE    LABOUR    PARTY 

The  British  Labour  Party,  like  a  comet  in  the 
heavens  and  like  the  British  Empire  itself,  seems 
to  have  grown  unconsciously,  in  virtue  of  its  own 
volition,  none  quite  clear  as  to  how  it  has  come  to 
fill  the  political  firmament  with  the  Red  Light. 

At  the  elections  of  1906,  when  the  membership 
of  the  Party  was  just  under  one  million,  and  29 
Labour  members  were  returned  at  the  General 
Election  out  of  ^^  constituencies  contested,  it 
polled  but  a  fraction  of  the  votes  of  the  electorate, 
polling  323,195  votes.  Yet,  during  the  last  bye- 
elections,  those  of  1920  and  1921,  Labour  polled 
201,000  votes  as  opposed  to  226,000  polled  by 
the  powerful  Coalition  candidates  and  86,000  by 
the  Liberals,  and,  according  to  Mr  Lloyd  George, 
on  these  figures,  it  only  needs  a  change  of  4  per  cent. 
in  the  voting  to  put  Labour  in  a  majority  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  when  assisted,  as  they  would 
be,  by  their  friends,  the  Independent  Liberals. 
In  the  last  General  Election  of  191 8,  Labour 
polled  about  half  what  the  Coalition  (government) 
candidates  polled,  obtaining  the  formidable  total 
of  2,300,000  votes  in  the  361  constituencies 
fought. 

In  the  next  General  Election  Labour  seeks  to 
contest  every  seat  in  Great  Britain. 

39 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Its  rise  to  power  has  been  meteoric.  But  comets 
sometimes  have  the  property  of  flashing  brightly 
for  a  space  and  then  flashing  out. 

The  original  party  sprang  from  *  the  brain  of 
British  Labour,'  the  Independent  Labour  Party, 
in  1 900.  Its  genesis  was  due  primarily  to  *  the 
man  in  the  cloth  cap,'  Keir  Hardie,  the  Scots  miner 
boy  who  drew  his  shorthand  characters  on  his  slate 
in  the  depths  of  the  earth.  Its  original  spirit  was 
the  spirit  of  the  *  I.L.P.' 

The  Labour  Party  has  not  been  transformed 
from  a  Federation  of  Trades  Unions,  Socialist 
parties,  co-operative  societies,  trades  councils,  etc., 
into  a  national  political  party,  open  to  the  individual 
membership  of  all  men  and  women  agreeing  with 
its  aim,  that  is,  the  bringing  of  the  Socialist  State. 

To-day,  the  Labour  Movement  as  a  whole, 
including  the  Trades  Unionists  as  producers,  the 
Co-operative  Societies  as  consumers,  and  the  Labour 
Party  itself  in  politics,  embraces  within  its  member- 
ship an  adult  population  of  about  ten  millions. 
Taking  the  low  estimate  of  two  children  for  each 
adult,  the  Labour  Movement  represents  about 
thirty  millions  of  the  forty-five  millions  of  the 
United  Kingdom. 

The  ov«:whelming  majority  of  the  four  and  a 
half  millions  of  the  Labour  Party  itself,  which  in 
the  year  1919-20  has  increased  by  no  less  than 
one  million,  are  drawn  from  the  Trade  Unions, 
with  their  six-and-a-half  millions  of  members, 
the  rest  consisting  of  the  Independent  Labour 
Party  with  some  60,000  members — the  tiny  tail 
which  swings,  or,  rather,  swung,  those  millions — 
40 


The  Labour  Party 

with,  in  addition,  the  intellectual  hierarchy  of 
which  Mr  Bernard  Shaw  is  the  high  priest — the 
two  thousand  of  the  Fabian  Society,  that  splendid 
propaganda  body,  both  of  these  bodies,  with  one  or 
two  others,  being  affiliated  to  the  Labour  Party. 

The  mention  of  Bernard  Shaw  and  his  Fabians 
demands  a  slight  digression,  as  the  position  of  the 
*  intellectual  *  in  the  British  Labour  movement  is  of 
interest.  To  the  average  Trades  Unionist  a  man 
like  *  G.  B.  S.'  is  as  phenomenal  and  inexplicable 
as  a  seraph.  (It  is  this  lack  of  understanding 
which  perhaps  is  the  only  thing  that  to  Mr  Shaw 
himself  is  phenomenal  and  inexplicable!)  At 
labour  congresses  the  materialisation  of  *  G.  B.  S.* 
has  invariably  resulted  in  '  a  frost,*  as  at  that  famous 
Portsmouth  Labour  Congress  where  the  Irishman 
turned  up  to  move  *  the  communisation  of  bread,* 
and  where  not  a  single  delegate  had  the  slightest 
idea  of  what  he  was  advocating,  much  to  Shaw's 
own  puzzlement. 

I  remember  once  his  speaking  to  a  Labour 
audience  at  the  Queen's  Hall,  and  the  giggle  which 
greeted  his  appearance  on  the  platform,  as  though 
some  jester  had  appeared,  and  the  place  were  a 
circus.  And  I  remember  his  opening  words, 
deeply,  seriously  meant,  at  which  the  audience 
roared  with  laughter,  thinking  he  Joked,  and  his 
serious,  puzzled  assertion :  '  But  I  am  in  earnest.* 
And  then  from  the  back  of  the  hall,  the  voice  of  a 
little  Cockney  trades  unionist,  scornful  :  *  When 
were  you  ever  in  earnest  }  * 

British  Labour  has  still  no  use  for  *  the 
intellectual,*  whom  it  is  apt  to  regard  as  *  a  damn 

41 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

nuisance,'  not  even  for  the  I.L.P.er,  who  is  indeed 
usually  only  very  mildly  intellectual. 

Frankly,  the  Red  Comet  of  Labour,  like  other 
comets  grown  gargantuan  and  globular  at  one  and 
the  same  time,  is  getting  impatient  of  its  *  I.L.P.' 
tail,  and  the  tail,  reduced  to  a  mere  excrescence, 
hangs  on  desperately  to  the  body  from  which, 
although  it  is  sick  of  it,  it  mistakenly  imagines  it 
draws  its  life,  whilst  it  is  really  the  Labour  Party 
which  has  drawn  its  life  from  the  Independent 
Labour  Party,  and  in  more  senses  than  one!  I 
have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  leaders  like  the 
Right  Hon.  Arthur  Henderson,  M.P.,  Mr  Willie 
Adamson,  M.P.  (former  chairman  of  the  parlia- 
mentary Labour  Party),  and  the  Right  Hon.  J.  H. 
Thomas,  M.P.,  would  cheerfully  see  the  LL.P. 
in  Hades  because  the  LL.P.  has  become  a  fury 
at  the  feast  of  Demos.  It  is  always  telling  Demos 
what  he  ought  to  do  and  doesn't! 

A  gentleman  who  has  been  a  chairman  of  the 
I.L.P.  and  who  is  to-day  one  of  the  most  active  and 
distinguished  workers  in  the  Labour  Party  said 
to  me  recently:  *  Some  of  the  labour  leaders  hate 
us.  They  would  like  to  see  the  I.L.P.  outside 
the  Party.'  Well,  they  will  probably  have  their 
wish. 

One  of  the  leading  officials  of  the  Labour  Party 
said  to  the  writer  a  little  while  ago  at  the  Party's 
headquarters:  '  Some  of  us  think  the  time  has 
come  for  the  I.L.P.  to  merge  its  identity  in  the  big 
Party,  because  circumstances  have  changed  and 
we  have  now  become  a  national  concern.'  As  this 
gentleman,  an  extremely  able  and  honest  official, 
42 


The  Labour  Party 

was  originally  one  of  the  most  passionate  supporters 
of  the  I.L.P.,  his  words  carry  special  weight. 

Looking  backwards  at  the  evolution  of  the  Red 
Comet,  one  marks  three  stages.  There  was  the 
stage  of  the  nebula,  of  gestation,  when  it  was 
beginning  to  take  form  in  the  womb  of  circumstance, 
when,  as  has  already  been  seen,  the  apostles  of 
independent  labour,  as  their  opponents  might 
then  have  expressed  it,  *  went  through  the  earth 
seeking  whom  they  might  devour.'  That  was  the 
stage  of  great  movements  full  of  spiritual  fire,  full 
of  fine  enthusiasms,  heroic  self-sacrifice  and  dogged, 
plodding  work  done  underground  and  out  of  the 
limelight. 

Then  came  the  middle  stage  when  the  new 
comet  began  to  define  itself  out  of  the  void  of 
politics,  by  the  return  in  1906  of  some  29  members 
to  the  House  of  Commons.  We  all  remember 
that  time  when  '  the  Red  Peril  '  had  replaced  '  the 
Yellow  Peril  '  and  when  catering  for  the  muggy 
mind  of  the  Great  British  Public,  hungry  for  sensa- 
tion, the  press  became,  first  apoplectic,  then,  foaming 
at  the  mouth,  epileptic.  We  were  on  the  edge  of 
revolution.  Society  was  in  the  throes  of  dissolution. 
Property  and  religion  were  about  to  expire  in  a 
mist  of  blood  and  tears.  It  was  the  time  of  anti- 
Socialist  societies,  societies  with  all  the  disadvantages 
of  a  negative  policy  and  big  names.  Society  was 
scared.  But  then  society  has  always  been  so 
easily  scared. 

There  was  that  great  meeting  of  some  two 
thousand  scared  citizens  in  the  hall  of  the  Cannon 
Street  Hotel,  gathered  in  response  to  the  clarion  of 

43 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

the  Middle  Classes  Defence  League,  the  meeting, 
which  was  to  set  the  anti-Socialist  ball  rolling  against 
the  new  Labour  Party,  when  I  sat  that  1 5th  of  March, 
1906,  my  tail  between  my  legs,  listening  to  the  plati- 
tudinous but  painfully  genuine  fulminations  of 
the  City  Fathers  against  the  red  peril.  Like 
thousands  of  others,  I  had  been  a  socialist  for 
many  years  without  having  met  a  comrade  or 
joined  a  movement.  (I  do  not  believe  I  knew  even 
the  name  of  a  single  socialist  society.)  And  I  can 
see  myself,  at  that  time  a  secretary  of  public  com- 
panies, like  thousands  of  other  unknown  men, 
moved  by  the  new  spirit,  rising  upon  my  trembling 
legs  and  in  a  sort  of  hair-spring  voice  asking 
permission  to  move  an  amendment  in  favour  of 
Socialism  to  the  anti-socialist  resolution  moved 
by  the  chairman.  I  can  see  the  astonished  stare 
and  hear  the  hiss  which  turned  the  sleek-coated  city 
gentlemen  into  an  excellent  imitation  of  a  den  of 
cobras  as  they  discovered  the  enemy  within  the 
gate. 

And  then  the  refusal  of  *  things  as  they  are  * 
to  be  amended  at  any  price  by  the  whole  of  the  hall 
to  one  vote — that  of  another  solitary  socialist  who, 
greatly  daring,  had  ventured  into  that  fortress  of 
class-consciousness. 

And  then  the  call  which  came  to  me  from  those 
comrades  outside  and  the  stormy  years  of  propa- 
ganda that  followed. 

My  case  was  that  of  thousands  of  others. 
Socialists  and  Labourites  were  finding  one  another 
in  those  strenuous  days  of  the  second  stage.  Deep 
was  calling  unto  deep.  And  society  seemed  to  be 
44 


The  Labour  Party 

forming  up  into  *  reds '  and  *  anti-reds  *  for 
Armageddon. 

Now  we  have  reached  the  third,  perhaps  the 
last  stage  when  the  Comet,  waxing,  beginning  to 
overspread  the  heavens,  coming  into  its  kingdom 
and  tasting  the  power  and  the  glory,  seems  assured 
of  final  victory.  And  yet,  for  those  who  have  eyes 
to  see,  the  signs  are  there  to  show  that,  as  has 
happened  to  many  comets  before  it,  the  Red  Comet 
of  organised  democracy,  as  democracy,  may  be 
dissipated  in  a  red  mist  between  sunset  and  sunrise. 

Not  one  of  us  in  that  yesterday  of  1906  foresaw 
two  things.  First,  that  the  Labour  baby  then 
tottering  to  its  feet  should  one  day  shake  the  land 
with  giant,  fateful  stride  and  the  dead  weight  of 
its  millions;  and  the  other,  which  only  a  god  or  a 
drunken  prophet  could  have  foreseen,  the  fact 
that  its  very  weight,  resting  upon  faulty  foundation, 
would  be  its  undoing,  leading  to  the  third  stage 
of  to-day. 

What  are  the  outstanding  phenomena  of  this 
third  stage  ? 

It  is  the  machine-stage  when  labour,  *  successful,* 
trusting  to  mass  weight  and  shock-tactics,  without 
direction,  hurls  itself,  ox-like,  first  here,  then 
there,  upon  the  ranks  of  Capitalism.  It  strikes  at 
times  for  any  or  for  no  reason.  It  strikes  for 
privilege  without  responsibility,  but,  above  all, 
it  strikes  for  its  belly.  But,  let  it  be  also  said,  it 
sometimes   strikes   against   unbearable   wrong. 

It  is  the  stage  when  *  ca'  canny,'  or  organised 
shirking,  the  thing  that  is  the  dry  rot  of  modern 
labour,  the  thing  that  is  eating  out  its  morale  to 

45 


Labour  :   The  Giafti  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

render  it  some  day  an  easy  prey  to  its  enemies,  has 
been  elevated  into  a  sort  of  religion.  The  canonisa- 
tion of  ca'  canny  in  our  times  and  its  justification 
as  *  reprisals  *  against  the  shameful  sweating  and 
underpayment  of  the  past  is  all  part  of  the  tyrant- 
machine  which  labour  has  developed,  and  it  is 
the  thing  at  which  the  labour  leaders,  themselves 
often  secretly  against  it,  have  winked,  finding 
that  silence  was  the  price  of  place.  Some  of  them, 
including  Mr  J.  H.  Clynes,  M.P.,  Mr  J.  H. 
Thomas,  M.P.,  and  Mr  J.  T.  Brownlie,  Chairman 
of  the  Engineers,  as  Mr  Philip  Snowden  of  the 
I.L.P.,  have  with  a  rare  courage  made  their  protest 
against  it — but  what  of  the  mass  of  the  leaders, 
parliamentary  and  trade  union  ?  Even  so  intelli- 
gent a  leader  as  Mr  Robert  Williams,  blind  to  the 
fact  that  *  ca'  canny  '  destroys  the  morale  of  the 
employee  far  more  than  it  hurts  the  purse  of  the 
employer,  describes  the  posters  making  this  appeal 
by  some  of  the  labour  leaders  mentioned  as  *  the 
infamous  "  Gate  to  More  "  posters.* 

Mr  Philip  Snowden,  the  acutest  economist  in 
the  labour  movement  to-day,  and  a  searchlight 
the  brilliance  of  which  is  feared  by  the  rushlights 
of  labour  leadership,  has  recently  written  in  the 
columns  of  a  labour  paper :  *  Production  is  the 
basis  of  the  whole  economic  and  financial  system. 
It  is  the  only  source  from  which  wages  can  be 
paid.  Increased  output  may  benefit  the  capitalists. 
It  probably  will;  but  without  increased  production 
the  workers  will  go  on  riding  the  merry-go-round, 
and  will  get  off  where  they  started.' 

And  finally  it  is  the  stage  when,  as  we  see  in 
46 


The  Labour  Party 

labour  congress,  in  trade  union  branch,  and  in 
labour  demonstration,  majority-right  has  been 
exalted  at  the  expense  of  minority-right,  and, 
with  it,  the  vote  elevated  into  a  sort  of  instrument 
of  God.  It  is  this  deification  of  democracy  which 
in  our  day  has  given  the  opportunity  for  the  adroit 
wire-pulling  of  votes,  which  has  led  to  the  re-election 
of  the  same  leaders  year  after  year  and  to  the 
strangling  of  certain  unions  by  their  *  old  men  of 
the  sea,*  who,  molluscous,  don't  lead  but  just  *  hang 
on.'  It  has  resulted  in  the  absolutely  unthinking 
holding  up  of  hands  in  the  average  trade  union 
branch  or  labour  congress  and  in  the  counting  of 
noses  rather  than  brains,  and  it  has  resulted  in  the 
blind  mechanical  swinging  from  one  policy  to 
another  which  we  have  seen  in  the  last  three  years 
of  strikes. 

A  miner's  leader  who  had  been  one  of  Keir 
Hardie's  stalwarts  in  his  attack  upon  Merthyr 
Tydvil,  said  to  me  within  the  last  year  upon  a 
lonely  road  of  South  Wales,  the  tears  standing 
in  his  eyes :  *  Our  chaps  swing  from  one  side  to 
the  other  like  the  beat  of  a  pendulum,  because 
they  have  become  machines  in  the  hands  first  of 
the  direct  actionists  and  then  of  the  politicals.  In 
the  old  days,  we  used  to  think.  Now  we  vote 
instead.' 

The  Labour  Party,  in  other  words,  in  its  third 
stage  is  becoming  a  voting  machine.  For  we  are 
well  into  the  third  stage,  the  stage  which  for 
Labour  is  fraught  with  fate.  The  stage  when 
success  has  cemented  bureaucracy  into  one  solid, 
stolid  mass,  none  the  less  bureaucracy  because  in 

47 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

it,  for  the  moment,  the  bureaucrat  is  not  the  leader 
but  the  led.  When  labour's  omnipotence,  as  its 
weakness,  the  things  which  the  war  revealed  for 
the  first  time,  are  drifting  helplessly  towards  the 
paradise  of  the  majority.  When  the  flexible  spirit 
of  the  movement  has  died  as  the  machine  developed, 
a  machine  feared  not  only  by  the  foes  outside  but 
by  the  friends  within  the  Party.  Into  that  last 
stage  of  crystallisation — the  stage  of  a  benevolent 
bureaucracy,  in  the  present  stage  so  *  benevolent ' 
that  the  bureaucrat  or  official  only  keeps  his  job 
by  acquiescence  with  the  majority  of  the  moment. 

He  will  not  always  acquiesce.  To-day  it  is  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  Labour  movement  who  form 
the  bureaucratic  machine,  for  that  is  what  the  Labour 
movement  is  rapidly  becoming.  But  some  day 
the  officials  will  put  the  strangle-hold  upon  the 
rank  and  file  as  the  rank  and  file  are  putting  it  on 
society.  We  shall  then  have  reached  '  the  dictator- 
ship of  the  proletariat '  by  a  handful  of  officials, 
as  in  Russia,  and  through  them  the  dictatorship 
of  society — in  other  words,  autocracy.  It  is  the 
eternal  circle. 

Perhaps  that  is  the  inevitable  end  of  all  comets 
as  of  all  successful  movements,  of  all  successful 
empires  as  of  all  *  successful '  men.  First  struggle, 
then  success,  then  stagnation.  And  finally,  at  the 
last,  decay.  Revolution — evolution — devolution. 
However  that  may  be,  it  is  assured  that  men  do 
create  machines  which  ultimately  master  the  men  who 
made  them,  as  it  is  also  assured  that  men,  honour- 
able men,  will  lie  and  indeed  do  everything  short 
of  murder,   sometimes  even  that,   to  defend  the 

48 


The  Labour  Party 

machine  or  system.  The  British  Labour  Party 
has  reached  that  stage  where  the  Machine  has 
mastered  the  Man. 

Here  it  is  interesting  to  note  how  right  capitalism 
was  in  this  one  thing.  We  socialists  were  always 
being  warned,  perhaps  not  always  very  intelligently 
or  consciously,  of  the  danger  of  the  bureaucratic 
machine.  Not  one  of  us  believed  it.  But  the 
capitalists,  though  actuated  by  self-interest  as  was 
natural,  were  right. 

I  remember  in  those  days  having  a  rather  excited 
and  not  altogether  gentlemanly  duel  with  Mr 
H.  G.  Wells  in  the  columns  of  the  Clarion  upon  this 
very  point.  With  the  easy  facility  of  those  days, 
I  had  ventured  to  say  that  the  fear  of  the  bureaucrat 
in  the  Labour  State  was  all  nonsense.  When  we 
did  not  like  an  official,  we  would  *  fire  '  him  as  a 
lady  would  *  fire  '  a  bad  cook  and  elect  another  in 
his  place.  Mr  Wells  pointed  out  with  some  heat 
the  danger  of  the  evolving  of  a  bureaucratic  machine 
— I  fear  I  had  trodden  rather  roughly  on  the  corns 
of  omniscience — but  pointed  it  out  entirely 
accurately  as  the  event  has  shown.  Ultimately 
it  took  the  editor,  Robert  Blatchford  himself, 
incidentally  entirely  misunderstanding  both  the 
protagonists,  a  misunderstanding  so  characteristic 
of  that  early  stage,  when  we  were  all  trying  to 
reconcile  the  irreconcilable,  to  pour  oil  upon 
troubled  waters. 

H.  G.  Wells,  with  that  phenomenal  imagination 
and  instinct  for  the  event,  was  right.  I  was  wrong. 
But  we  were  all  wrong. 

None  of  us  saw  the  danger  of  the  coming  of 

49 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

the  machine.  To-day  there  are  thousands  in  the 
Labour  Party  who  see  the  danger  but  find  them- 
selves powerless  to  avert  it.  Within  the  last  year 
or  two  hundreds  of  middle-class  members  of  the 
Labour  Party  and  still  more  working-class  members 
have  said  this  to  the  writer  and  others.  The  labour 
press,  when  independent,  as  the  socialist  congresses 
themselves,  have  been  full  of  references,  veiled 
or  open,  to  the  *  official '  outlook  which  the  Party 
leaders  are  developing. 

Labour,  like  a  second  Frankenstein,  has  created 
a  monster  outside  itself,  a  monster  which  may  one 
day  devour  it. 

But  quite  apart  from  the  danger  of  the  machine, 
the  Party's  essential  differences  of  ideal,  method 
and  goal  are  evident. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  Labour  Party  consists 
of  three  sections.  There  is  that  small  active 
Bolshevist  minority  standing  for  advance  by 
physical  force,  insignificant  in  numbers  itself,  yet 
strong  enough  and  active  enough  to  swing  the 
numberless  malcontents  who  infect  every  trade 
union  and  socialist  party,  and,  despite  the  Labour 
Party's  resolution  excluding,  the  Communists, 
always  at  work  under  orders  from  Moscow  to 
remain  inside  the  party  to  split  it,  as  Lenin  him- 
self says  in  his  Left  Communism :  an  Infantile 
Disorder.  (We  have  already  seen  the  '  official  ' 
Labour  Party  candidate  opposed  at  a  bye-election 
by  a  Bolshevist  brother.)  Then  there  is  the  in- 
telligent, disgusted  minority  of  the  Independent 
Labour  Party  type,  many  of  them  middle-class  men 
and  women,  who,  though  standing  for  advance  by 
50 


The  Labour  Party 

parliament  and  the  vote,  yet  are  always  at  secret 
war  with  the  stodginess  of  the  leaders  and  the 
idealless  policy  of  the  party.  Finally  there  is  that 
third,  inert  body  consisting  of  the  indifferent 
millions  of  the  trade  unionists,  the  great  mass  of 
whom,  and  with  some  splendid  and  outstanding 
exceptions,  are  much  more  concerned  with  wages 
and  work  than  with  ideals.  This  is  the  great  dead 
mass,  part  of  which  will  in  sheer  inertia  vote  for 
the  party  election  after  election,  and  part  of  which, 
joining  the  party  as  it  does  purely  from  stomach 
reasons,  will  desert  the  party  after  it  comes  to 
power  and  when  it  finds  that  the  New  Jerusalem 
has  not  matured  overnight. 

If,  however,  none  of  the  above  weaknesses  existed, 
and  they  apply  largely  not  only  to  the  British  but 
to  the  world  movement,  the  fatal  lack  of  imagina- 
tion of  the  older  labour  leaders  would  ensure, 
more  effectively  than  any  opposition,  the  final 
failure  of  any  party  of  progress,  as  such,  for  the 
Labour  Party  may  '  succeed  '  as  a  party  of  bureau- 
cratic reaction,  never  as  a  party  of  progress.  This 
lack  of  vision  is  shown  in  their  eternal  vacillation, 
just  as  it  was  shown  at  the  beginning  of  the  war 
when,  if  ever,  vision  and  definite  policy  was  needed, 
one  way  or  the  other.  First,  when  at  the  great 
Trafalgar  Square  demonstration  of  August  2nd, 
1 9 14,  a  resolution  was  put  forward  and  passed 
that  *  Great  Britain  should  rigidly  decline  to 
engage  in  war.  .  .  .'  But  on  August  29th,  the 
National  Executive  of  the  Labour  Party  passed 
a  resolution  which  surely,  if  passed  at  all,  should 
have  been  passed  on  the  2nd  August,  in  favour 

51 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

of  a  parliamentary  recruiting  campaign  for  the 
army,  the  mass  of  the  Labour  movement  joining 
in  the  campaign  as  will  be  remembered. 

Such  instances  of  vacillation  arising  from  lack 
of  imagination  could  be  multiplied  indefinitely. 

Mr  Ramsay  Macdonald,  himself  a  former  chair- 
man of  the  party  in  parliament,  apparently 
recognising  the  lack  of  policy  and  vacillation 
arising  from  the  visionless  leaders,  says  in  his  book, 
A  Policy  for  the  Labour  Party,  that  if  parliamentary 
representation  leads  to  the  selection  of  men  unequal 
to  the  task,  *  the  Independent  Labour  Party  would 
again  try  its  hand  in  gathering  together  an  opinion 
and  a  mass  to  become  the  political  custodians  of 
the  Great  Industrial  Co-operative  State.' 

The  strength  of  a  party  is  determined,  not  by 
numbers  but  by  convictions.  Let  us  see  why  the 
average  working  man  votes  for  the  Labour  Party 
to-day. 

He  does  so  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  not  because 
he  is  kept  awake  o'  nights  thinking  about  the 
undertrodden  proletariat — he  doesn't  know  what 
the  word  *  proletariat '  means — or  because  he 
wants  a  new  heaven  on  an  old  earth.  He  does  so 
because  he  wants  more  money  for  less  work.  That 
is  the  brute  fact. 

When  he  goes  on  strike,  he  does  so,  in  the  mass, 
not  out  of  *  sheer  cussedness,'  as  is  popularly 
supposed,  and  certainly  not  because  he  wants  to 
bring  either  the  revolution  or  the  Socialist  State, 
about  which  he  knows  nothing  and  cares  less,  as 
can  be  found  out  by  questioning  any  average 
striker,  but,  again,  because  he  wants  more  money 
52 


,  The  Labour  Party 

for  less  work.  He  strikes  but  too  often,  and  always 
excepting  the  small  idealist  minority,  not  for 
conscious  principle  but  for  wages,  not  for  soul 
but  for  body,  as  was  recently  practically  admitted 
to  the  writer  by  the  distinguished  chairman  of 
the  Independent  Labour  Party,  Mr  *  Dick  * 
Wallhead,  a  man  of  unique  experience,  as  by 
many  others. 

And  he  strikes  '  because  the  other  fellows  strike,' 
swayed  by  laws  as  obscure  as  those  determining 
the  migration  of  fish  or  the  flight  of  birds.  Behind 
any  big  strike  in  the  beginning  there  are  usually 
not  more  than  a  dozen  men. 

Which  is  not  to  say  that  in  the  ranks,  and  even 
amongst  the  leaders,  there  are  not  to  be  found 
men  and  women  of  deep,  ardent  conviction.  But 
they  are  an  almost  infinitesimal  minority. 

Of  course,  the  above  facts  are  generally  known 
to  those  leaders  who  still  keep  their  heads  out  of 
the  vote  morass  into  which  most  of  them  have  sunk. 

The  theory  of  the  men  who  sat  at  the  helm  of  labour 
in  the  old  days  used  to  be :  '  First  get  the  workman 
to  vote  for  his  belly,  and  afterwards  he  will  vote 
for  his  soul.'  It  was  the  old  theory  of:  *  Solve 
the  poverty  problem  and  you  solve  all  spiritual 
and  intellectual  problems  attaching.' 

Only  one  would  venture  to  ask:  Is  it  sure  that 
when  the  workman  has  filled  his  belly  he  will 
hunger  for  soul  and  brain  food  }  Is  it  sure  that 
when  a  Labour  Party  comes  to  power,  as  it  certainly 
will  before  half  a  dozen  elections  have  passed, 
the  men  who  have  joined  it  upon  the  *  More 
money — less  work '  principle,  when  they  find 
L.  K  53 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

that  the  Labour  as  well  as  the  Capitalist  state  has 
empty  bellies,  will  continue  to  vote  for  it  ?  And, 
finally :   Do  votes  alone  mean  real  power  ? 

Then  there  is  another  little  problem  for  con- 
sideration in  the  steady  accession  to  the  Labour 
ranks  of  distinguished  ex-liberals  such  as  Mr 
H.  B.  Lee-Smith,  the  Liberal  member  for  Nor- 
thampton; Sir  Leo  Chiozza  Money,  M.P.,  Mr 
Charles  Roden  Buxton,  and  Mr  Noel  Buxton,  the 
Hon.  Bertram  Russell,  the  Hon.  Arthur  Ponsonby, 
and  certain  members  of  the  Cadbury  family,  of 
cocoa  fame. 

Many  or  even  all  of  these  gentlemen  are  doubt- 
less sincere  Labourists  and  Socialists,  but  is  it 
sure  that  all  those  other  liberal  '  sympathisers  * 
who  are  flooding  out  the  Labour  Party  have 
Socialism  for  their  goal  and  wish  to  see  the  Red 
Flag  one  day  over  the  House  of  Commons  ?  Is 
it  sure  that  all  the  other  ex-liberals  have  joined  the 
Labour  Party  because  they  are  deeply  concerned 
for  the  wrongs  of  Bill  Smith,  working  man,  or  is 
it  because  the  Liberal  Party  has  become  dissipated 
in  space  as  in  politic  and  the  rising  star  of  Labour 
seems  to  promise  career  }  Is  the  Labour  Party 
not  in  the  situation  of  the  young  lady  of  Riga,  who 
went  for  a  ride  on  a  tiger — in  this  case  a  i^iberal 
tiger  } 

One  ventures  to  ask  these  questions.         '  -  * 

And  soon,  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt,  we 
shall  find  Mr  Asquith  an  enthusiastic  labour 
member,  as  we  should  find  Mr  Lloyd  George 
himself  if  he  were  twenty  years  younger  and  there 
had  been  no  Coalition. 
54 


,  The  Labour  Party 

And  one  other  question.  If  the  Labour  Party 
holds  upon  its  present  juggernaut  of  *  success '  will 
it  not  ultimately  lead  to  the  whole  party  becoming 
'  liberalised '  out  of  all  knowledge  from  the 
original  party,  when  the  name  will  be  the  only 
thing  of  Labour  left,  just  as  the  adoption  of 
capitalism  by  the  Bolshevist  State  in  Russia  has 
left  it  only  the  name  *  Bolshevist  ? ' 

One  is  only  asking. 

But  does  not  all  this  but  show  that  between 
those  early  days  of  ardent  faith  and  heroic  self- 
sacrifice,  those  days  of  Keir  Hardie's  cloth  cap 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  these  days  of  the 
political  machine  with  its  seeking  of  votes  and 
place,  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  It  is  the  gulf 
which,  to  the  smug  but  quite  sincere  self-satis- 
faction of  the  leaders  of  to-day  means  but  the  gulf 
between  the  destructive  and  the  constructive, 
between  criticism  and  achievement.  But  it  is,  in 
the  growing  consciousness  of  thousands  of  Labour 
adherents,  defining  itself  as  the  gulf  between 
Lazarus  and  Dives,  between  glorious  struggle 
and  soulless  *  success,'  between  evolution  and 
devolution. 

But  in  remembering  that,  one  does  not  forget 
that  of  evolution  itself  devolution  is  also  part. 


5.S 


VI 


LEADERS    AND    LED 


Here,  it  is  interesting  to  consider  the  relationship 
of  leaders  and  led  in  the  Labour  Party  and  to  trace 
the  process  by  which  the  leaders  have  become 
the  led. 

In  the  first  wild  fury  of  the  democratic  *8o's, 
down  to  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
whole  idea  of  the  Socialist  movement  was  to  get 
rid  of  the  bureaucratic  leader,  whatever  shape  he 
might  assume.  Then,  after  we  had  cut  our  milk 
teeth  and  discovered  that  leaders  were  as  necessary 
as  organisation,  we  put  up  with  our  leaders  who, 
however,  were  very  careful  to  keep  the  mailed 
fist  inside  the  velvet  glove.  In  fact,  for  many  years, 
the  art  of  *  leading  without  letting  the  other  fellow 
know  it  *  was  developed  in  our  congresses  and 
branches  to  as  high  a  pitch  of  perfection  as  that 
of  any  statesman  of  autocracy. 

Gradually,  as  is  the  way  with  democratic,  in 
comRxon  with  all  other  humanity,  having  rid 
ourselves  of  what  we  called  *  our  false  gods,'  we 
set  up  others  in  their  places,  making  our  gods  in 
the  likeness  of  ourselves  and  worshipping  them. 

Marx  was  our  first  god.  Then  we  developed 
quite  a  hierarchy,  beginning  with  Keir  Hardie, 
who,  incidentally,  had  more  god-like  qualities 
than  any  who  have  preceded  or  followed  him,  but 
36 


Leaders  and  Led 

who  never  sought  to  be  treated  other  than  as  a 
good  comrade.  He  himself  once  told  me  in  a 
Belfast  hotel  after  we  had  spoken  at  a  Labour 
Party  demonstration,  that  of  all  religions,  his 
secret  sympathies  lay  closest  to  Buddhism — and, 
as  we  know,  one  of  the  chief  objects  of  the  Buddhist 
thought  is  to  get  rid  of  all  gods,  although  I  doubt 
if  Hardie  himself,  an  essentially  reverent  man, 
realised  this ! 

Each  Socialist  society  had  its  own  private 
Mahatmas.  The  Social  Democratic  Federation 
or  *  S.D.F.,'  had  Mr  H.  M.  Hyndman,  a  sort  of 
Social-Democratic  Jehovah.  The  Clarion  Scouts, 
of  which  I  was  secretary  for  four  years,  and  the 
Clarion  cycling  clubs  had  Robert  Blatchford,  who 
himself,  simple  determinist,  hated  the  idea  of  gods 
or  godship,  and  to  prove  it  upon  *  the  other  com- 
rade,' once  wrote  upon  the  front  page  of  the 
Clarion  that  famous  article  which  bore  the  title: 

*  Concerning  Mahatmas,'  being  a  satire  upon 
the  Independent  Labour  Party's  worship  at  the 
shrine  of  Keir  Hardie.  (This  gentleman,  with 
his  colleagues  upon  the  National  Administrative 
Council  of  the  LL.P.,  had  been  called  in  derision 

*  the  holy  Socialist  trinity.') 

The  divinity  of  these  last  was  unquestiq^ed, 
although  I  do  not  assert  that  they  themselves 
sought  it.  At  the  Edinburgh  LL.P.  conference 
in  1909,  after  'the  Big  Four,'  Messrs  MacDonald, 
Snowden,  Glasier,  and  Hardie,  in  one  of  those 
fits  of  the  sulks  which  afflict  political  leaders  at 
times  when  their  followers  see  fit  to  disagree  with 
them,  had  resigned  from  the  executive,  we  were 

57 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

treated  to  the  edifying  spectacle  of  seeing  them 
begged,  almost  lachrymously,  by  Joe  Burgess, 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  I.L.P.,  to  return  to  the 
seats  of  the  mighty  and  lead  us  into  the  Promised 
Land.  They,  at  least,  having  resigned,  had  the 
dignity  and  the  decency  not  to  return. 

It  was  at  this  conference  that  Mr  Leonard  Hall, 
himself  a  member  of  the  executive,  pointed  out 
the  danger  of  the  idea  which  was  gradually  spreading 
abroad :  '  that  criticism  was  blasphemy,  and  that 
all  elected  persons  were  sacrosanct.* 

The  Trades  Unions  developed  a  very  special 
assortment  of  godheadedness  as  the  years  went 
on. 

Some  of  the  rank  and  file  of  the  unions  swore 
by  Ben  Tillett,  the  man  with  the  profile  of  a  Greek 
god  and  of  the  adventures  of  Ulysses,  some  at 
him.  John  Burns,  at  the  time  the  writer  came  into 
the  movement,  had  retired  into  the  holy  of  holies 
of  cabinet  ministership  and  Clapham  Common 
and  was  being  cursed  by  bell,  book,  and  candle 
by  the  high-priests  of  Marxianism.  (This  gentle- 
man's searching  analysis  of  some  of  his  old  comrades 
who  have  managed  to  dodge  *  the  Man  with  the 
Scythe,'  given  recently  to  the  writer  in  his  book- 
fastness  on  the  Common,  might  give  the  ungodly 
occasion  to  scoff,  and  so  will  not  be  repeated!). 
Every  now  and  then  a  strange  god  would  arise, 
gather  around  him  a  band  of  the  faithful,  preach  the 
one  true  faith  and  disappear  into  the  infinite.  (We 
once  had  a  gentleman  of  this  type,  who  fell  upon  us 
out  of  the  circumambient,  a  man  with  long  hair, 
sandals,  and  gabardine,  a  follower  of  Epictetus 
58 


headers  and  Led 

and  simple  lifer,  who,  like  so  many  others,  turned 
out  to  be  just  a  simple  loafer.) 

Victor  Grayson,  the  enfant  terrible  of  the  move- 
ment, at  one  time,  and  certainly  without  asking  it, 
for  Grayson  was  modest,  seemed  irresistibly  to 
be  drawing  to  himself  the  adoration  of  the  dis- 
contented elements  inside  the  Labour  Party  which 
were  already  showing  themselves  at  the  time  of 
his  return  for  Colne  Valley  in  1907 — the  first 
man,  and  apparently  the  last,  to  be  returned  as  a 
pure  *  Socialist '  for  a  British  constituency.  Some 
of  us  still  remember  one  of  his  admirers,  an  en- 
thusiastic young  High  Church  curate  with  an 
Adam's  apple  which  in  his  more  excited  periods 
moved  up  and  down  like  a  shuttle,  who  at  times 
seemed  to  confuse  Grayson  with  the  gods  of  his 
church,  and  from  whom  Grayson,  upon  his  approach, 
was  wont  to  hide  himself  under  the  nearest  table. 

The  orthodox  labour  leaders,  as  always,  quietly 
unimaginative,  even  did  their  best  to  provide  him 
with  a  cross  by  laughing  him  to  scorn,  at  first 
refusing  to  officially  endorse  his  candidature  for 
Colne  Valley — but  Grayson  was  not  made  for 
crosses,  and  so  he,  too,  also  in  the  long  run  vanished 
from  the  ken  of  '  the  divinely  discontented  *  and 
to  the  great  content  of  the  orthodox  who  only 
wanted  to  be  left  alone. 

But  looking  backwards,  it  is  curious  to  note 
how  nearly  all  the  great  figures  of  the  movement 
came  from  the  little  army  of  the  Independent 
Labour  Party.  None  of  the  men  who  came  after, 
the  men  who  to-day  are  the  nominal  leaders  of 
labour,  have  ever  won  the  affection  and  enthusiasm 

59 


Labour  :    The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

that  the  earlier  I.L.P.'ers  won.  The  I.L.P.  was 
then  the  brain  of  labour.     To-day  it  is  the  tail. 

For  many  years  and  even  down  to  the  war,  many 
of  these  leaders  were  autocrats  in  all  but  name;  and 
it  must  be  said  for  them  that,  not  only  were  they 
absolutely  sincere  as  any  other  autocrats  that  their 
reign  was  necessary  for  the  good  of  the  rank  and 
file,  but  that  they  ruled  as  uncrowned  kings  over 
most  submissive  and  obedient  subjects.  They 
developed  a  tactic  that  was  rriasterly,  reducing  the 
running  of  congresses  to  a  fine  art,  riding  the  rank 
and  file  on  a  loose  rein,  letting  the  animal  think  it 
was  having  its  own  way  and  choosing  its  own  road, 
whilst  adroitly  guiding  it  inflexibly  to  the  goal  of 
its  riders. 

I  remember  at  the  Leicester  Labour  Party 
Congress  in  1 9 1 1  seeing  a  typical  example  of  this 
sway  of  mind  over  matter,  or,  to  put  it  more 
accurately,  the  sway  of  the  professional  over  the 
amateur.  It  is,  I  think,  fair  to  say  that  the  majority 
of  delegates  to  that  congress  were  convinced  of 
the  equity  of  *  proportional  representation  '  and 
would  have  voted  for  it.  Then,  Mr  Ramsay 
MacDonald,  a  consummate  artist  in  the  technique 
of  public  meeting,  rose  to  speak  against  it.  Within 
a  short  time  he  had  completely  swung  the  congress 
to  his  way  of  thinking,  and  proportional  representa- 
tion was  lost  on  a  card  vote  by  1,255,000  to  97,000 
votes. 

MacDonald,  one  of  the  best  hated  and  most 
admired  men  in  the  Socialist  movement,  has 
always  been  one  of  its  intellectual  gods,  of  an  entirely 
different  type  to  Hyndman,  the  intellectual  divinity 
60 


,  Leaders  and  Led 

of  the  Social  Democratic  Federation,  for  between 
these  two  men  love's  labour  was  certainly  lost. 
A  sincere  man,  despite  his  critics  and  his  reputation 
for  intrigue,  a  reputation  derived  from  an  extra- 
ordinary capacity  for  self-hypnosis  and  a  Scots 
belief  in  compromise,  gifted  with  exceptional  force 
of  character  and  a  certain  personal  magnetism,  but 
lacking  perhaps  in  the  human  quality  which  draws 
affection,  MacDonald,  despite  his  host  of  enemies, 
will  yet  make  labour  history,  and  will  possibly 
be  the  first  Labour  Premier,  as  he  undoubtedly 
means  and  has  always  meant  to  be. 

From  time  to  time,  men  arose  both  in  the  socialist 
parties  themselves  as  in  the  Labour  movement  of 
which  they  were  part,  to  challenge  this  rule  of  the 
leaders  and  the  *  policy-less  policy  '  of  the  Party, 
all  of  them  either  to  be  absorbed  or  smashed  by 
the  official  machine,  known  in  the  movement  as 
*  the  caucus.*  Ben  Tillett  challenged  the  caucus. 
Jim  Larkin  challenged  it.    Victor  Grayson  did  also. 

Where  are  those  three  challengers  to-day  ? 
The  first  has  been  taken  into  the  machine,  or,  at 
least,  his  voice  is  no  longer  heard  above  the  grinding 
of  the  wheels.  The  second  is  in  jail  in  a  foreign 
land,  a  red  Ishmael,  his  hand  against  every  man, 
every  man's  hand  against  him.  Victor  Grayson 
is  no  longer  in  the  movement. 

The  Social  Democratic  Federation,  afterwards 
the  British  Socialist  Party,  as  a  movement  challenged 
the  labour  leaders  and  their  machine,  only  ultimately 
to  be  absorbed  by  the  monster.  Even  after  it 
entered  the  party  maw,  the  B.S.P.  carried  on  its 
intransigeant   tactics.      But    where    is    the    British 

6i 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Socialist  Party  to-day  ?  It  has  been  driven  from 
the  Labour  Party  and  has  now  been  swallowed  by 
the  Communist  Party,  which  apparently  can  digest 
anything,  except  Lenin. 

Much  of  which  will  of  course  be  fiercely  denied 
by  the  officials  themselves  and  as  fiercely  endorsed 
by  their  opponents. 

It  must  not  be  assumed  that  none  of  the  leaders 
inside  the  Labour  Party  executive  protested  against 
the  development  of  the  caucus  as  against  that 
deification  of  the  leader  which  was  so  often  the 
deification  of  the  duffer.  Men  like  Keir  Hardie, 
dragged  at  the  tail  of  circumstance,  resented  secretly 
and  even  fiercely  the  new  developments  in  the  party. 

One  fine  summer's  evening — I  think  it  was 
about  the  time  when  Mr  Ramsay  MacDonald, 
then  chairman  of  the  parliamentary  party,  was 
leading  his  moutons  enrages  through  the  division 
lobbies  of  the  House — I  was  standing  in  a  doorway 
in  Victoria  Street  and  saw  a  procession  of  labour 
members  being  led  to  the  House  to  vote  in  some 
division  or  other.  At  the  tail  came  Keir  Hardie, 
looking,  to  use  a  popular  phrase,  and  not  in  any 
invidious  sense,  for  the  writer  has  always  admired 
him,  *  like  a  sick  monkey.'  The  whole  story  of 
his  being  dragged  from  the  propaganda  platform, 
which  he  should  never  have  left,  to  become  a  cog 
in  a  voting  machine,  and  of  his  disillusionment 
with  the  party,  was  told  in  his  air  and  bearing. 
He  looked  a  sad  and  sorry  man,  heartily  ashamed 
of  the  whole  business,  unprotestant  because  he 
feared  to  split  the  party. 

It  was  the  thing  which  I  met  in  one  of  the  chief 
62 


,  Leaders  and  Led 

paid  officials  of  the  Labour  Party  in  London,  a 
a  year  or  two  after  it  had  been  returned  in  1906 
*  to  paint  Westminster  red,'  a  man  to  whom  in  the 
innocence  of  my  heart,  recalHng  the  time  when  he 
had  been  a  fervent  co-worker  with  me  upon  the 
executive  of  one  of  the  propaganda  bodies,  I  had 
been  expanding  upon  the  ideals  of  the  Labour  Party 
and  the  chances  the  Labour  members  would  now 
have  to  translate  them  into  realities. 

He  looked  at  me  a  moment,  opened  his  lips  as 
though  to  speak,  and  smiled  a  little  pitying  smile. 
It  struck  me  dumb.  It  was  so  obviously  the  smile 
of  a  completely  disillusioned  man,  as  indeed  I 
gathered  from  his  next  words. 

Already,  even  at  this  stage,  the  leaders  were 
getting  the  taste  of  power  in  the  mouth  and  were 
finding  it  sweet.  And  with  it  all,  they  were,  many 
of  them,  so  unconscionably  prim  and  self-satisfied. 

I  recollect  having  a  conversation  about  this 
time  with  Mr  Arthur  Henderson  at  the  then 
headquarters  of  the  Party  in  Victoria  Street  and 
can  remember  realising,  vaguely,  in  growing 
apprehension,  how  perfectly  self-satisfied  the  leaders 
were  becoming  and  how  perfectly  impossible  it 
already  was  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  dangers 
ahead.  Even  Arthur  Henderson,  an  honest,  well- 
meaning,  and  modest  man,  was  quite  obviously 
of  the  belief  that  the  Labour  Party  was  the  best 
possible  in  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds.  It  was 
rather  like  interviewing  His  Holiness  the  Pope. 

The  psychology  of  all  this  is  not  difficult  to 
understand.  No  doubt  dozens  of  labour  leaders, 
even    to-day,    as   their   followers,    sometimes   have 

63 


Z  abour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

flashes  of  intuition  to  warn  them  of  the  tremendous 
machine  by  which,  having  created  it,  they  are 
being  ingested  and  of  its  dangers.  But,  because 
such  flashes  are  inconvenient,  and  because,  if 
they  dared  to  think,  the  whole  machine  would 
tumble  about  their  ears  and  they  would  lose  their 
positions,  they  deliberately  keep  their  eyes  closed. 
Dazzled  as  they  are  by  the  piling  up  of  votes,  by 
every  apparent  sign  of  prosperity  and  success, 
warnings  come  to  them  as  something  ridiculous — 
and  so  they  are  forced  to  run  forward  just  as  a  man 
on  a  tight  rope  is  forced  to  run  or  fall.  They  dare 
not  think.  They  do  not  think.  But  some  day 
they  will  have  to  think. 

One  of  the  marks  of  the  degradation  to  which 
organised  labour  has  fallen  from  its  high  estate 
is  shown  by  the  blatant  justification  of  *  machine- 
politics  '  by  the  modern  labour  leader,  a  justification 
made  often  with  the  cleanest  possible  conscience. 

A  former  respected  leader,  who  some  years  ago 
made  a  remarkable  fight  for  labour  in  a  southern 
constituency,  frankly  said  to  the  writer  the  other 
day :  '  Of  course  Labour  must  develop  its  machine. 
We  shall  never  be  able  to  make  conscious  Socialists 
of  more  than  a  small  minority,  and  what  we  have 
to  do  is  to  reach  the  point  where  the  average  man 
votes  *  red  '  just  as  his  father  voted  for  the  party 
colours  of  Liberal  or  Tory,  without  knowing  very 
much  of  what  he  is  voting  for.'  The  secretary  of 
one  of  the  organisations  affiliated  to  the  Labour 
Party  who  was  present,  and  like  his  friend,  honest 
and  intelligent,  confirmed  the  other's  remarks, 
adding,  with  that  paralysing  sang-froid  of  the 
64 


,  headers  and  Led 

labour  leader,  with  its  utter  unconsciousness  of 
anything  higher  than  votes  and  power :  *  That  is 
the  only  way  to  get  our  men  into  parliament.* 

But  it  will  be  said  that  all  this  has  changed 
to-day.  The  outstanding  phenomenon  of  our 
time  since  the  war  has  been  the  throwing  over  of 
leaders  by  the  rank  and  file  and  even,  as  we  have 
seen  in  the  1921  Miners'  Strike,  their  fierce 
denunciation.  Repeatedly,  during  and  since  the 
war,  we  have  seen  the  decisions  of  the  leaders  set 
at  naught  by  their  followers.  We  have  seen  the 
Shop  Stewards'  movement  aimed  directly  against 
centralised  control,  and  we  have  seen  the  *  lightning 
strike  '  without  consultation  with  leaders  or  directly 
in  the  teeth  of  their  advice. 

During  the  1921  Miners'  Strike  we  have  seen 
fiery  meetings,  especially  in  South  Wales,  de- 
nouncing leaders,  who  have  been  called  *  traitors,* 
and  with  it  searching  criticism  of  men  like  Mr 
Frank  Hodges,  the  secretary  of  the  Miners* 
Federation,  in  this  case,  at  least,  a  criticism  entirely 
undeserved.  We  have  seen  the  labour  leaders 
attacked  front,  flank,  and  rear,  in  press  and  on 
platform,  by  both  bolshevist  and  orthodox  trades 
unionist.  Congresses,  in  their  criticisms  of  the 
leaders,  have  shown  a  tendency  to  boorishness  if 
not  to  downright  bearishness.  And  at  the  South- 
port  Congress  of  the  Independent  Labour  Party 
we  have  recently  seen  97  delegates,  with  their 
branches,  break  away  from  the  leading  strings. 

All  this  is,  however,  but  a  temporary  phenomenon, 
as  will  be  seen  when  we  come  to  consider  the  psycho- 
logy of  Demos  under  the  stress  of  the  Great  War. 

65 


VII 


THE    WAR    AND    DEMOS 


The  revolt  against  the  leaders  can  be  explained 
by  the  new  psychology  of  the  labour  movement 
which  the  war  developed  and  from  the  results  of 
which  it  has  not  yet  recovered.  This  development 
can  be  traced  step  by  step. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  war,  Demos  was  still  an 
easy-going  sort  of  fellow,  still  prepared  to  do  an 
honest  day's  work  for  what  was  sometimes  a  dis- 
honest day's  wage,  who  struck  not  '  for  the  fun  of 
the  thing,*  but  more  or  less  out  of  reasoned 
purpose. 

But  the  war  changed  all  that.  In  no  field  has 
it  made  such  fundamental  change  as  in  that  of 
democracy. 

Up  to  the  outbreak  of  war,  the  British  Labour 
movement  had  the  comfortable  theory — it  has 
always  had  comfortable  theories — a  theory  carefully 
fostered  by  the  leaders,  that  man  was  essentially 
a  reasonable  animal  and  that  Labour  would  come 
to  its  own  (incidentally,  it  was  never  clear  as  to 
what  was  *  its  own  '  or  to  what  it  was  coming) 
peacefully,  step  by  step  through  the  vote  and 
peaceful  persuasion.  Nor  have  I  the  slightest 
doubt  that  the  most  uncomfortable  body  of  men 
in  England,  had  some  chance  stroke  flung  labour 
into  power,  would  have  been  the  labour  leaders 
66 


,  The  War  and  Demo^ 

themselves.  It  was  so  delightful  to  go  to  con- 
gresses (we  used  to  call  them  '  junketings  ')  and 
to  speak  in  Trafalgar  Square  and  pass  resolutions 
and  denounce  and  criticise.  But,  and  the  agendas 
and  debates  of  the  pre-war  Labour  congresses 
will  prove  the  statement  to  the  hilt,  what  we  were 
to  do  when  we  got  to  power  we  scarcely  troubled 
to  visualise.     We  were  much  too  *  practical.* 

Another  comfortable  pre-war  theory  of  the 
leaders  was  that  there  would  never  be  a  world- 
war  and  that  when  it  came  (for  we  were  delightfully 
muddled  both  in  phraseology  and  thinking), 
somehow  or  other  the  working  man  would  refuse 
to  shoot  his  brother.  We  weren't  quite  clear  as 
to  why  he  would  not  shoot  him.     But  there  it  was. 

All  this,  despite  the  passing  of  anti-war  resolu- 
tions from  *  the  fraternal  greetings  to  our  foreign 
comrades  '  type  and  the  vague  generalisations 
with  which  our  congresses,  both  national  and 
international,  bristled,  down  to  the  definite, 
militant  *  War  against  War '  of  Keir  Hardie's 
International  General  Strike  resolution  against 
war  which  I  heard  him  move  at  the  Copenhagen 
International  Socialist  Congress  in  1910.  That 
of  course  was  much  too  definite  for  the  leaders, 
and  so  Hardie  was  compelled  to  withdraw  it  for 
further  consideration  by  the  movement  before  the 
Vienna  Internationalist  Congress  to  be  held  in 
1 9 14,  which  never  came,  for  by  then  socialist  was 
cheerfully  killing  socialist  in  the   trenches. 

Then  came  the  war  and  knocked  our  theories 
into  a  cocked  hat,  and  for  the  first  time  shook  the 
faith  of  the  working  man  in  the  infallibility  of  his 

67 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

leaders,  who  were  now  being  regarded  as  false 
prophets,  not  so  much  consciously  as  sub-consciously 
— and  the  working  man,  like  all  human  beings,  is 
dominated  by  his  sub-conscious  mind  rather  than 
by  his  conscious.  Men,  even  working  men,  were 
actually  driving  their  bayonets  into  their  brothers 
not  only  with  a  prayer  on  their  lips  but  with  the 
scientific  *  twist  in  the  guts,'  and  were  doing  it 
con  amore.     The  leaders  were  astonished. 

You  see,  our  leaders  had  never  been  clear  about 
country  and  patriotism.  We  were  never  very  clear 
about  anything.  We  did  not  say  we  were  for  or 
ajgainst  country — we  simply  sidestepped  it.  We 
hated  facing  facts.  Perhaps  it  was  not  only  a 
class  but  a  national  characteristic. 

The  chaos  of  our  leaders*  minds  was  shown 
not  only  by  the  contradictory  labour  resolutions 
for  and  against  participation  in  the  war  which 
throughout  the  country  were  passed  at  its  outbreak, 
but  by  their  failure  to  grasp  the  problems  which 
would  inevitably  follow  on  the  heels  of  war  for  the 
rising  democracy,  a  failure  which  left  them  at  its 
conclusion  comparatively  helpless. 

The  shock  to  our  preconceptions  caused  by 
the  war  jarred  the  Labour  movement  to  its  heels 
and,  after  shaking  our  faith  in  our  leaders,  made 
way  for  that  irritation  against  them  and  for  the 
spirit  of  anarchy  which  for  the  first  time  entered 
the  movement,  and  for  that  mutual  recrimination 
between  leader  and  led  which  marked  the  congresses 
of  labour,  all  this  being  helped  by  the  success  of 
the  Russian  Revolution. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Demos,  the  baby, 
68 


The  War  and  Demos 

never  realised  his  strength  until  the  war,  forgetting 
that  only  the  peculiar  and  artificial  circumstances 
of  war,  when  man-power  both  for  killing  and 
feeding  was  needed  at  all  costs,  gave  him,  now, 
the  whip  hand.  Having  been  taught  by  his  leaders 
that  the  ends  of  existence  were  primarily  material 
ends,  or,  rather,  never  having  been  taught  that 
they  were  something  other,  and  getting  blood  on 
his  teeth,  he  began  to  demand  not  only  the  blood 
of  the  capitalist  but  of  the  country — not  always 
the  same  thing.  Each  demand  granted  by  those 
who  sat  in  the  high  places  at  Westminster  but 
served  to  whet  the  appetite  of  the  labour  baby, 
who,  like  one  of  Mr  H.  G.  Wells's  '  boom-food  ' 
babies,  waxed  fat  and  kicked. 

To  give  Demos  his  due,  however,  he  was  not 
only  developing  tigerish  but  heroic  qualities, 
enduring  without  complaint  and  giving  his  life 
upon  the  sodden  fields  of  France,  in  order,  as  he 
at  least  then  believed,  *  to  make  the  world  safe  for 
democracy.'  For  Demos,  like  his  master,  is 
neither  black  nor  white,  but  gray. 

But  the  imagination  of  certain  men  of  the  baser 
sort  getting  to  work  and  comparing  the  enormous 
advances  in  nominal  wages  in  a  handspan  of  years 
as  opposed  to  those  in  the  plodding  years  of 
parliament  which  preceded  it,  they  put  it  to  Demos 
that  advance  by  the  vote,  like  the  leader  who  had 
advocated  it,  was  ridiculous.  '  Look  at  what  you 
get  by  the  threat  of  direct  action  and  damn  your 
leaders!  '  they  said.  And  as  victory  followed 
victory,  Pyrrhic  victories  as  Labour  is  to-day  dis- 
covering.  Demos   turned  more  and  more  to  the 

L.  F  69 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

two-edged  sword  of  direct  action  and  the  strike — 
that  sword  which  cuts  not  only  the  man  against 
whom  it  is  wielded  but  the  wielder  himself. 

The  leaders,  astonished,  dismayed,  finding  that 
neither  manipulation  nor  threat  availed,  took  the 
only  course  possible  to  such  men — they  went 
with  the  tide — and  they  are  still  going  with  the 
tide.  They  dared  not  swim  against  the  new 
current,  and  perhaps  all  this  was  natural.  After 
all,  they  were  only  human — and  they  were 
*  politicians.'     But  the  fact  remains. 

An  interesting  example  of  the  chameleon-like 
capacity  for  quick-change  upon  the  part  of  the 
labour  leader,  when  the  rank  and  file  give  the 
word,  was  shown  in  the  famous  Council  of  Action 
formed  by  Labour  in  1920  to  oppose  any  war  with 
Soviet  Russia,  which  Council  called  for  any  and 
every  means,  even  including  a  general  strike,  to 
prevent  such  a  war.  We  were  then  amazed  by  the 
spectacle  of  Labour's  leading  anti-direct  actionists, 
men  who  had  always  fought  the  idea  of  force, 
laying  hand  on  heart  and  declaring  their  adhesion 
to  the  force  principle. 

The  net  result  is  that  of  recent  years  the  leaders 
have  become  the  led.  Holding  their  places  as 
they  do  at  the  mercy  of  the  votes  of  their  followers, 
can  one  wonder  that,  politicians  as  they  are,  they 
live  votes  and  seek  votes  and  dream  votes.  Almost 
insensibly  and  with  conscience  complete  they 
have  come  to  regard  the  labour  movement  as  a 
preserve  in  which  the  plums  of  office  are  the  reward 
of  gauging  correctly  the  feeling  of  the  men  with 
the  votes,  nor  are  they  alone  in  this. 
70 


,  The  War  and  Demos 

What  the  average  man  forgets  is  that  when  a 
leader  goes  to  meet  the  employer  at  the  arbitration 
table,  he  is  not  a  brain  but  a  mouthpiece.  He  is 
a  *  walking  delegate.*  If  he  doesn't  do  what  he  is 
told  he  may  be  *  fired.'  And  so,  ultimately,  the 
leader  of  democracy  finds  himself  in  exactly  the 
same  position  as  some  modern  monarchs,  he  finds 
that  the  price  of  the  job  is  popularity  and  going 
with  the  tide. 

But  all  this  has  meant  the  coming  of  a  new 
spirit  into  the  labour  movement — *  the  spirit  of 
the  loaves  and  fishes,' 

The  new  outlook  of  the  labour  leader  was 
forcibly  illustrated  in  a  case  which  recently  came 
under  my  own  notice  which  helps  to  explain  that 
vein  of  scepticism  almost  invariably  displayed  by 
the  modern  journalist,  so  often  a  labour  sympathiser, 
when  speaking  of  the  labour  leaders  of  to-day. 

The  London  editor  of  a  provincial  newspaper 
group  was  asked  by  his  principals  to  obtain  an 
article  from  a  certain  very  prominent  labour  leader 
and  M.P.,  giving  his  views  upon  a  matter  then 
engaging  public  attention.  The  leader's  first 
question  was  very  properly:  *  How  much  .''  '  He 
was  informed  that  ;^5  a  column  was  the  usual 
payment,  it  being  pointed  out  that  the  article 
would  help  his  union  considerably.  '  Not  enough,' 
he  said.  Although  admitting  its  importance  to 
his  union,  he  refused  to  write  the  article  for  less 
than  ;^io  a  column,  which  was  finally  agreed. 

The  London  editor  then  approached  another 
well-known  labour  leader — a  former  *  All- Red,' 
who    has    made    British    labour    history — for    his 

71 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

views,  he  also  asking:  '  How  much  ? '  Being 
informed  that  the  first  leader  had  agreed  to  do  it 
for  jf lo  a  column,  he  replied,  *  No  fear!  Not 
enough.     /  have  a  ruddy  soul  to  selll  * 

Such  a  case  is  of  course  quite  exceptional.  But 
that  it  should  be  possible,  is  eloquent  of  the  new 
outlook,  and  it  is  from  such  men  that  those  who 

*  sell  out '  of  the  Labour  movement  are  recruited — 
that  is,  go  over  to  well-paid  posts  in  the  ranks  of 
Labour's  opponents,  the  term  being  invented  for 
them. 

The  labour  leader,  whether  trades  unionist  or 
member  of  parliament,  with  a  few  noble  exceptions, 
and  especially  since  the  war,  which  has  brought 
the  leaders  'to  heel,*  is  first  and  foremost  '  out  to 
keep  his  job,'  a  fact  fully  recognised  even  by  the 
denseness  of  the  rank  and  file,  who,  like  the  tyrant 
children  they  are,  play  upon  it  by  jibbing  at  advice 
and  insisting  upon  unthinking  obedience.  At 
every  congress  of  labour,  the  exchange  and  barter 
of  jobs  is  perfectly  understood,  nor  will  any  single 
leader  have  the  courage  or  the  audacity  to  deny 
it.      The    different    unions    say    to    one    another: 

*  We'll  vote  for  your  man  if  you'll  vote  for  ours,* 
the  practice  being  characterised  some  time  ago 
by  the  Labour  Leader  itself,  a  warm  advocate  of 
the  Labour  Party,  as  *  a  crying  scandal.' 

It  is  perfectly  well  known  and  has  as  freely 
been  expressed  for  the  last  ten  years,  that  the 
reason  of  the  trades  union  jealousy  and  internecine 
warfare  which  exists,  as  the  failure  hitherto  to 
secure  *  the  unification  of  the  unions,*  is  due  to 
job-hunting  and  the  fear  by  the  officials  that 
72 


The  War  and  Demos 
• 

centralisation  of  control  would  lead  to  fewer  jobs. 
The  Achilles  heel  of  trades  unionism  is  that  no 
official  is  going  to  yield  his  job  save  with  life  itself. 

Mr  Frank  Hodges,  the  Secretary  of  the  Miners* 
Federation,  at  the  Labour  Party  Congress  held 
at  Brighton  in  192 1,  placed  it  on  record  that  *  they 
had  tried  to  penetrate  deeper  down  into  the  strength 
and  the  weakness  of  the  industrial  movement  as  a 
whole,  and  the  conclusion  they  had  drawn  was 
that  industrially  the  trade  union  movement  was 
for  the  most  part,  unhappily,  a  mere  grouping  of 
close  corporations  with  only  the  interest  of  the 
particular  group  at  stake  and  at  heart,  and  as  the 
British  industrial  movement  developed  they  found  that 
tendency  more  and  more  marked.^ 

It  was  at  the  same  congress  that  Mr  T.  F. 
Richards,  a  prominent  Trade  Union  official  and 
a  lifelong  worker  for  Labour,  mercilessly  analysed 
the  trade  unions  by  saying  that  they  had  been 
pompous,  bombastic,  obsessed  with  their  impor- 
tance and  prosperity,  and  that  they  were  now  faced 
with   bankruptcy   and   utterly   impotent. 

How  far  democracy  itself,  and  particularly 
since  the  war,  has  become  plutocracy  and  how  far, 
even  in  the  trades  unions  themselves,  the  big  fish 
cat  the  little,  was  shown  by  a  speech  of  Mr  Dan 
Irving,  the  Labour  Party  M.P.  for  Burnley,  in  a 
House  of  Commons  debate  of  this  year,  in  which 
he  said : — 

*  Many  a  man  who  has  spent  his  life  in  public 
service  in  a  constituency  and  is  in  every  way  a  fit 
candidate  to  represent  the  constituency,  is  to-day 

73 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

being  turned  down  because  he  belongs  to  no  great 
Union,  and  because  other  members  and  officials 
of  Unions,  which  have  money  behind  them,  secure 
the  nomination  of  their  Union.  Even  to-day, 
therefore,  there  is  a  narrowing  of  the  field  from 
which  candidates  can  be  drawn,  and  wealth,  even 
in  the  working-class  movement,  counts  for  a 
great  deal  in  the  selection  of  a  candidate — probably 
even  more,  in  many  instances,  than  capacity  and 
proved  service.' 

It  may  here  be  said  that  quotations  similar  to 
the  above  given  in  this  book  could  be  multiplied 
ad  nauseam.  All  these  things  are  known  both  to 
leaders  and  led — it  is  only  place-hunting  and 
political  cowardice  which  prevents  them  being 
dragged  into  the  light  of  day. 

But  if  the  rank  and  file  imagine  that  the  leaders 
have  changed,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  that  they 
themselves  have  changed  in  such  matters,  however 
much  the  war  seems  to  have  introduced  a  new 
relationship,  they  are  making  a  natural  but  fatal 
mistake.  The  modern  labour  leader,  usually 
more  or  less  sincere,  in  a  vague,  amiable  way, 
often  anxious  for  the  welfare  of  his  class,  has  more 
than  ever  since  the  war,  which  gave  to  him  the 
sweets  of  high  government  office,  developed  from 
the  propagandist  into  the  politician.  He  is  out 
for  *  career.*  He  is,  as  has  been  shown,  determined 
not  to  be  led  longer  than  is  absolutely  necessary. 
And  it  is  not  difficult  for  those  inside  the  movement 
to-day  to  see  that  the  rank  and  file  are  once  more 
gradually  falling  into  line  under  the  word  of 
74 


,  The  War  and  Demos 

command  of  the  drill  sergeant.  The  process  is 
slow — but  it  is  there. 

The  fact  is  that  the  majority  of  the  leaders  to-day 
are  imitating  some  of  the  worst  points  of  some  of  their 
political  adversaries.  They  have  not  only  become 
*  respectable,'  loving  the  insignia  of  respectability, 
but,  what  is  worse,  they  are  beginning  to  play  the 
game  of  politics  in  the  old,  bad  way.  And  they  are 
playing  against  men  who,  masters  at  the  game, 
with  centuries  of  training  and  tradition,  will  always 
be  able  to  beat  them. 

The  editor  of  a  London  conservative  daily  said 
to  me  some  time  ago :  *  Labour's  opponents 
believe  they  will  always  be  able  to  sidetrack  labour, 
and  they  believe  it  with  full  justification,  having 
regard  to  labour's  record.  So  many  of  the  labour 
leaders  are  out  for  themselves.  And  they  lack 
imagination  and  enthusiasm.  Few  of  them  can 
resist  a  job,  still  fewer,  flattery.  If  they  become 
troublesome,  they  can  always  be  "  kicked  upstairs  " 
into  office.* 

That  may  be  true  of  some  of  the  leaders  to-day. 
But  it  is  not  true  of  all.     Nor  will  it  always  be  true. 

But  what  is  true,  and  what  in  sorrowful  retrospect 
is  known  to  even  the  humblest  member  of  Labour's 
rank  and  file,  is  that  when  the  war  was  over,  the 
Labour  leaders  had  the  ball  at  their  feet.  The 
world  was  sick  of  war,  its  old  illusions  broken,  and 
was  turning  with  eager,  longing  eyes  to  democracy 
to  save  it  from  itself.  Even  the  man  in  the  street, 
for  all  his  lack  of  knowledge  of  labour,  as  is  generally 
admitted,  had,  after  the  war,  turned  almost  un- 
consciously towards  the  rising  democracy  for  the 

75 


"Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

salvation  of  society.  The  Labour  leaders  knew 
this,  and  it  is  to  their  lasting  shame  that  instead 
of  leading  humanity  along  new  paths  towards  new 
goals,  even  at  the  risk  of  a  temporary  political 
set-back,  they,  with  few  exceptions,  placed  position 
and  party  before  principle,  treading  the  smooth, 
well-worn  road  that  leads  to  office  and  preferment. 

And  so  wide  and  deep  is  the  recognition  of  all 
this,  that  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  scarcely 
a  single  leader  of  the  Independent  Labour  Party 
section  of  the  national  Labour  Party  will  deny  it; 
and  that  there  are  even  leaders  sitting  in  West- 
minster and  upon  the  Trades  Union  executives 
who  have  thought  the  same  thing  deep  in  their 
hearts,  and  who,  poor  fellows!  would  give  every- 
thing, except  career,  to  say  what  they  think,  but 
cannot,  hobbled  as  they  are  to  the  chariot  of  party. 

But  the  Labour  leaders  still  continue  to  play  the 
game  of  politics  and  job-hunting,  still  are  quietly 
determined  to  regain  their  lost  power  over  their 
followers,  and  still  persist  with  their  preposterous 
phrases  of  *  liberty  '  and  *  democracy;  '  and  so 
they  will  persist  until  the  new  democracy  that  is 
forming  has  found  them  out  a!nd  abandoned  them. 


76 


VIII 

THE    BIRTH    OF    A    PARTY 

If  there  had  never  been  any  I.L.P.  there  would 
never  have  been  any  Labour  Party. 

Up  to  1893,  when  the  I.L.P.,  or  Independent 
Labour  Party,  was  formed,  the  British  working 
man  had  no  more  idea  of  independent  representa- 
tion in  parliament  as  working  man  than  has  the 
American  workman  of  to-day.  Up  to  the  advent 
of  the  I.L.P.,  the  British  working  man  regarded 
the  Liberal  or  Tory  M.P.  as  his  natural  interpreter 
in  the  national  councils. 

It  was  the  Independent  Labour  Party  which 
sounded  the  trumpet  call  for  Labour  independence 
of  both  the  historic  parties.  Its  evolution  is  here 
of  vital  interest. 

After  the  Chartist  Movement  had  collapsed  in 
the  late  '40's,  the  working-class  movement  seemed 
to  have  received  its  death-blow.  But  the  Reform 
Act  of  1868  enfranchised  the  workmen  in  the 
boroughs  and  in  the  same  year  the  first  Trades 
Union  Congress  was  held  at  Manchester.  The 
first  coming  of  the  idea  of  *  independent  labour 
representation  '  was  at  the  second  Trades  Union 
Congress,  held  the  following  year  in  Birmingham, 
when  a  paper  was  read  on  '  Direct  Labour  Represen- 
tation in  Parliament,*  and  about  this  time  a  Labour 
Representation  League  was  forlned  for  returning 

77 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Trades     Unionist    members    to    the    House    of 
Commons. 

The  League  failed  to  get  its  candidates  recog- 
nised by  either  the  Liberal  or  Tory  parties,  being 
forced  into  three-cornered  contests,  and  it  was  not 
until  the  General  Election  of  1874  that  the  League 
secured  the  return  of  two  men,  Alexander  Macdonald 
and  Thomas  Burt,  out  of  14  candidates,  of  whom 
only  four,  including  the  two  returned,  were  allowed 
a  straight  fight  as  Labour  candidates.  In  the 
1885  election,  11  Labour  members  were  returned 
to  the  House  of  Commons,  without,  however, 
acting  as  a  separate  group. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  *  socialist  spur  * 
first  got  to  work,  the  year  1 8  8 1  seeing  the  formation 
of  the  Democratic  Federation,  and,  with  it  the 
beginning  of  that  tendency  to  splitting  which  the 
Socialist  movement  had  taken  over  from  its  pre- 
cursors, the  Churches.  For  the  new  organisation 
soon  split  into  the  Socialist  League,  headed  by 
William  Morris,  the  poet,  and  the  Social  Demo- 
cratic  Federation,   headed   by   H.    M.   Hyndman. 

The  tendency  to  sectionalism  and  to  fatuous 
belief  in  words  in  the  Socialist  movement  as  in  the 
Labour  movement  of  which  it  is  a  part,  is  excellently 
illustrated  by  this  last  organisation,  which  became 
the  Social  Democratic  Party,  which  changed  its 
name  to  the  British  Socialist  Party,  this  B.S.P. 
splitting  during  the  war  into  two  parts,  one  part 
calling  itself  the  National  Socialist  Party,  which, 
incidentally,  has  now  once  more  taken  on  the  original 
name  of  the  Social  Democratic  Federation,  under 
their  old  leader,  Hyndman — and  so  the  sectarian 

78 


The  Birth  of  a  Party 

circle  completes  itself.  It  is,  by  the  way,  most 
interesting  to  note  the  longevity  of  the  Socialist 
propagandist,  many  of  the  pioneers  of  fifty  years 
ago  being  still  alive  and  kicking  .  .  .  usually  one 
another! 

It  cannot,  however,  too  strongly  be  emphasised 
that  to  the  pioneering  of  the  Democratic  Federation 
and  its  self-sacrificing  leaders,  the  Socialist  awaken- 
ing of  Great  Britain  is  alone  due. 

The  Labour  Representation  League  disappeared, 
and  at  the  1886  Trades  Union  Congress  an 
Electoral  Labour  Committee  to  unite  Labour 
opinion  throughout  the  country  in  favour  of 
independent  labour  representation  was  formed, 
but,  like  so  many  labour  men  and  organisations 
to  come  afterwards,  it  got  tangled  up  with 
Liberalism — *  Lib-Labism,'  as  the  Liberal-Labour 
mixture  ultimately  came  to  be  known — in  other 
words,  it  was  *  nobbled  *  by  the  Liberals,  exactly 
as  the  modern  Labour  Party  is  beginning  to  be, 
if  not  *  nobbled,*  then  diluted.  For  at  this  time 
the  Labour  infant  showed  a  tendency  to  those 
political  rickets  which  have  now  become  chronic. 

It  was  Keir  Hardie  who  gave  the  first  clarion 
call  to  independent  labour  representation  in  a 
definite  sense.  This  was  at  the  Swansea  Trades 
Union  Congress  of  1887,  when,  as  representative 
of  the  Ayrshire  miners,  he  enunciated  in  his  first 
Trades  Union  Congress  speech  the  demand  for 
the  political  independence  of  Labour.  In  1888, 
Hardie  stood  as  Independent  Labour  candidate 
for  Mid-Lanark.  He  was  offered  ;^3oo  a  year, 
a  safe  Liberal  seat,  and  the  payment  of  his  election 

79 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

expenses  if  he  would  withdraw.  But  this 
Chevalier  Bayard  of  Labour,  sans  peur  et  sans 
reproche,  refused  to  be  bought,  just  as  in  the  long 
afterwards  he  refused  for  himself  a  life  annuity 
which  two  old  ladies,  greatly  admiring,  offered 
him.  The  Socialist  and  Labour  movement  has 
been  rich  in  such  men. 

He  was  defeated  heavily,  but  out  of  this  ex- 
perience the  Scottish  Labour  Party  was  formed, 
with  Keir  Hardie  as  Secretary. 

In  1893,  some  fifty  local  working-class  organisa- 
tions met  together  with  delegates  from  Socialist 
and  industrial  bodies,  these  delegates  including 
John  Burns  and  J.  Havelock  Wilson  (both  still 
alive),  and  under  Hardie's  chairmanship,  Hardie 
having  been  returned  for  South- West  Ham  at 
the  General  Election  of  1892,  formed  the  Indepen- 
dent Labour  Party. 

The  next  five  years  saw  the  I.L.P.  carry  the 
fiery  cross  through  the  highways  and  byways  of 
Britain,  and  in  1895  twenty-eight  I.L.P.  candidates 
went  to  the  polls,  all  being  defeated,  even  Keir 
Hardie  losing  his  seat.  Yet  it  was  in  this  moment 
of  defeat  when  perhaps  the  Labour  movement, 
all  unknowing,  reached  its  highest  point  of  courage 
and  enthusiasm.  Parties,  like  nations,  often 
mistake  nadir  for  zenith,  imagining  that  mere 
numbers  and  *  success  '  mean  the  latter,  whereas 
they  more  often  mean  the  former. 

A  broader  movement  was  believed  to  be  neces- 
sary, and  in  1899  ^  resolution  was  carried  at  the 
Plymouth  Trades  Union  Congress,  by  546  to 
434  votes,  in  favour  of  convening  a  Special  Congress 
80 


The  Birth  of  a  Tarty 

*  for  securing  an  increased  number  of  Labour 
Members  in  the  next  Parliament.' 

This  Special  Congress  was  held  at  the  Memorial 
Hall,  London,  on  February  27,  1900,  129  delegates 
representing  over  half  a  million  members  being 
present,  these  delegates  representing  the  Trades 
Unions,  the  Independent  Labour  Party,  the  Social 
Democratic  Federation,  and  the  Fabian  Society, 
a  party  constitution  being  drafted,  and  a  Labour 
Representation  Committee,  or,  in  other  words, 
a  Parliamentary  Labour  Party  being  formed. 

In  1902  Philip  Snowden  contested  Wakefield 
unsuccessfully,  but  D.  J.  Shackleton  was  returned 
for  Clitheroe.  In  1903  Will  Crooks  won  Woolwich 
and  Arthur  Henderson  Barnard  Castle,  unsuccessful 
bye-elections  being  fought  by  John  Hodge  at 
Preston  and  G.  H.  Roberts  at  Norwich. 

Here  it  is  interesting  to  see  what  has  happened 
to  these  pioneers  of  the  I.L.P.  and  Labour  Party, 
as  it  throws  an  interesting  sidelight  upon  the 
Labour  Party  of  to-day. 

Keir  Hardie,  his  health  undermined,  died  of  a 
broken  heart  in  191 6  at  seeing  the  work  of  a 
lifetime  crumble  under  him  when  the  workers  of 
Europe  went  into  the  trenches  to  kill.  Mr  John 
Burns,  now  the  Right  Hon.  John  Burns,  became 
perhaps  the  man  most  hated  of  his  former  socialist 
comrades,  when  he  took  office  in  Sir  Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman's  Liberal  Government  in 
1905,  the  forerunner  of  many  others.  For  Mr 
Havelock  Wilson,  the  Secretary  of  the  Sailor's 
and  Fireman's  Union,  and  the  part  he  played 
during  the  war  have  been  reserved  by  many  of  his 

81 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Labour  comrades  the  fiercest  denunciations,  Mr 
D.  J.  Shackleton  has  become  Sir  David  Shackleton 
and,  becoming  a  Labour  adviser  to  the  govern- 
ment, for  which  post  he  receives  ^{^3000  a  year, 
has  ceased  to  take  active  part  in  Labour  poUtics. 
Mr  Will  Crooks,  '  the  great  Cockney,'  a  much 
loved  and  very  human  man,  and  who,  with  Hardie, 
of  those  mentioned,  alone  has  gone  to  the  Great 
Beyond,  found  himself  at  loggerheads  with  his 
old  comrades  at  the  time  when,  taking  a  bellicose 
line  upon  the  war,  he  asked  the  permission  of  the 
Speaker  to  start  the  singing  of '  God  Save  the  King,' 
in  the  House,  whilst  Mr  John  Hodge  and  Mr  G.  H. 
Roberts,  both,  like  Mr  Arthur  Henderson  and 
Mr  George  Barnes,  now  *  Right  Honourables,'  and, 
with  the  approval  of  the  party,  ex-members  of 
capitalist  governments,  have  at  various  times 
caused  much  heart  burning  amongst  some  of  their 
old  labour  friends. 

One  of  the  most  prominent  industrial  leaders 
has  written  a  book  upon  this  period  in  which  he 
speaks  of  '  the  treason  of  political  association  with 
the  Liberal  and  Conservative  parties,'  and,  speaking 
of  the  leaders  who  took  office,  says  they  *  had 
either  sold  themselves  or  handed  themselves  over 
gratuitously  to  the  militarist  rulers.  .  .  .'  Here, 
again,  is  one  of  those  questions  of  policy  which 
irretrievably  divide  modern  labour. 

Alone,  amongst  those  mentioned,  Mr  Philip 
Snowden  still  keeps  the  red  flag  flying,  but,  as 
one  would  venture  to  think,  like  many  of  the  other 
LL.P.  leaders,  profoundly  uncomfortable  and 
distressed  in  the  later  phases  of  the  Labour 
82 


The  Birth  of  a  Party 

movement  which  he  has  done  so  much  to  build 

^P-     .  . 

It  is  curious  to  reflect  upon  the  composition  of 

a  certain  cricket  XL,  consisting  largely  of  Labour 

leaders,    which    the    writer     captained    in     1906. 

John  Hodge — a  redoubtable  bowler  and  afterwards 

Minister  of  Pensions  (we  had  two  or  three  future 

Ministers  in  that  team,  or  as  spectators,  if  memory 

serves),   and   to   remember   that  to-day   nearly  all 

of  these  men,  then  close  comrades,   have  become 

so    divorced    from    one    another    and    from    the 

crusading  spirit  of  the  Labour  movement  at  that 

time  that  no   power  on   earth  could   bring  them 

together    either    upon    the    cricket    or    any    other 

field! 

The  Newcastle-on-Tyne  third  annual  Labour 
Representation  Committee  Conference  of  1903 
threw  out  the  first  direct  challenge  to  the  other 
parties  when  it  passed  a  resolution  demanding 
that  *  the  members  of  the  Executive  Committee 
should  strictly  abstain  from  identifying  themselves 
with  or  promoting  the  interests  of  any  section  of 
the  Liberal  or  Conservative  parties.  .  .  .'  For  it 
must  be  remembered  that  in  those  early  days  of 
Labour,  large  numbers  of  Labour  M.P.s  and 
trade  union  leaders  were  still  what  were  called 
*  half-baked,'  and  much  inclined  to  hob-nob  with 
their  old  radical  connections.  The  Labour 
infant  was  still  ricketv,  but  his  bones  were 
hardening. 

The  years  1903,  1904,  and  1905  saw  the 
Independent  Labour  Party  and  the  Labour 
Representation     Committee     with    which    it    was 

83 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

affiliated,  carrying  on  a  tearing  propaganda  through- 
out the  country,  with  the  result  that  at  the  General 
Election  of  1906,  29  of  the  50  candidates  run  as 
Labour  candidates  were  returned  to  the  House  of 
Commons,  forming  for  the  first  time  a  separate 
Labour  Group  in  parliament,  the  name  of  the 
organisation  being  changed  to  that  of  *  The  Labour 
Party,'  which  has  grown  into  the  formidable 
organisation  we  know  to-day. 


64 


IX 


THE    BRAIN    OF    LABOUR 


In  all  movements,  and  more  especially  in  all 
democratic  movements,  it  is  a  handful  of  men  and 
women  who  steer  and  inspire.  Democracy  itself 
is  always  steered  by  autocracy.  This  is  also  true 
of  the  Labour  Party,  which  right  from  1893  to 
1906  was  inspired  and  steered  by  the  handful  of 
I.L.P'ers — fifty  or  sixty  thousand  as  they  ultimately 
became.  The  decline  of  the  Labour  Party  in 
ideal,  morale,  and  enthusiasm,  very  definitely 
dates  from  the  return  of  the  29  Labour  men  to 
parliament  in  the  latter  year. 

It  would  seem  to  be  inevitable  natural  law  that 
the  climb  to  power  and  success,  whether  of  man 
or  movement,  is  marked  by  the  shedding  of  ideals 
and  inspiration.  We  see  it  in  the  successful 
politician,  for  whom  the  French  have  the  inimitable 
word  *  arriviste^''  or  *  one  who  has  arrived,'  and  we 
see  it  in  the  successful  party.  Both  men  and 
parties  camouflage  the  fact  and  anaesthetise  their 
consciences  by  the  use  of  smooth  phrases.  They 
say  that  power  means  responsibility  and  responsi- 
bility means  conservatism.  *  Inspiration,'  in  this 
terminology  of  *  success,'  becomes  *  hot-headed- 
ness.'     *  Idealism,'  '  irresponsibility.' 

When  we  of  the  I.L.P.  in   1906,  with  beating 

hearts,   saw  the  little  band  of  29    stalwarts   take 

L.  G  85 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

their  seats  on  the  green  benches,  we,  like  the 
awakening  democracy  which  had  sent  them  there, 
expected    certain    definite    things. 

First,  we  expected  *  the  best  platform  in  Europe,' 
as  is  the  British  House  of  Commons,  to  be  used 
in  season  and  out  of  season.  Instead,  we  found 
a  disinclination  to  use  it  and  instead  an  inclination 
*  to  get  the  tone  of  the  House.'  We  expected, 
naively  enough,  that  our  M.P.s  would  regard 
themselves  not  only  as  leaders  and  inspirers  but 
as  the  interpreters  of  the  movement  behind  them 
and  the  mouthpieces  of  the  dumb  masses,  and  that 
in  the  political  arena  they  would  set  up  new  standards 
of  unselfishness  and  conduct.  Instead,  we  found, 
right  from  the  beginning,  the  very  human  tendency 
to  regard  themselves  only  as  the  leaders  of  labour, 
not  its  mouthpieces,  and  we  were  witnesses  of  the 
spectacle  of  forceful  speakers  like  Mr  Pete  Curran 
reduced  to  babbling  impotency  in  their  endeavours 
to  ape  the  statesman.  But  instead  of  becoming 
first-rate  statesmen,  they  simply  became  third-rate 
labour  leaders. 

When  the  day  comes  to  write  an  epitaph  upon 
the  coffin  of  the  parliamentary  leaders  of  British 
Labour,  it  will  run :  *  These  men  died  of  states- 
manship.' 

From  the  beginning,  these  men  were  over- 
awed and  over-weighted,  and  there  is  a  funny 
little  story  told  of  one  of  the  labour  members, 
rebellious,  young,  and  enthusiastic,  who,  watching 
the  gorgeous  spectacle  of  the  opening  of  parliament, 
with  its  display  of  jewel  and  dress,  turned  to  an 
older  companion  member  and  said :  *  I  say,  Alf, 
86 


•  *  The  Brain  of  Labour  * 

weVe  got  to  abolish  this!  *  To  which  his  friend, 
already  a  wiser  and  sadder  man,  replied:  *  This 
is  going  to  take  a  hell  of  a  lot  of  abolishing!  * 

We,  of  course,  took  it  for  granted  that  with 
the  '  horrible  example  *  of  Mr  John  Burns  before 
them,  they  would  scornfully  refuse  to  take  office 
in  capitalist  governments.  Instead,  we  found, 
as  indeed  the  event  has  proved,  that  some  of  them 
would  be  only  too  glad  of  the  chance  to  do  so. 

And  with  all  this  there  went  an  increasing 
tendency  to  take  themselves  so  seriously  that 
some  of  them  developed  into  those  slightly  ridiculous 
figures,  ponderous  and  humourless,  to  which  the 
public  have  now  become  accustomed. 

One  of  these  labour  leaders  to  whom,  like  the 
Scotsman,  '  the  Lord,*  doubtless  in  response  to 
prayer,  *  had  given  a  guid  conceit  o'  himsel','  was 
travelling  to  a  certain  conference  in  1920  in  a 
carriage  in  which  some  trades  unionists  were 
seated.  After  a  while,  nobody  taking  particular 
notice  of  him,  he  turned  to  the  carriage  and  said 
portentously:  '  Perhaps  you  don't  know  that  you 
have  a  future  prime  minister  in  the  carriage  with 
you? '  and  was  deeply  offended  when  the  carriage 
laughed  at  him.  This  was  one  of  the  gentlemen 
who  are  regarded  as  being  in  the  running  for  the 
Labour  Premiership  stakes. 

Of  course,  the  wilder  spirits  of  us  in  the  year 
that  followed  that  fateful  1906,  expected  '  scenes,' 
*  naming  by  the  Speaker,'  and  even  a  bout  with 
the  Sergeant-at-Arms — a  sort  of  exaggerated  Irish 
Nationalist  Party  in  fact.  Those  were  the  dreams 
of  innocence. 

>     87 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

We  anticipated  smashing  speeches,  based  upon 
our  almost  invariable  experience  of  victory  in  our 
street  corner  meetings  and  debates  with  our 
political  opponents.  Instead,  and  with  the  excep- 
tion of  such  giants  as  Philip  Snowden  and  Ramsay 
MacDonald,  and  such  sincere  debaters  as  Keir 
Hardie,  we  found  our  men,  abandoning  the  broad- 
sword for  the  rapier,  over-matched  and  over- 
weighted in  almost  every  debate  by  opponents 
whom  they  tried  to  meet  with  their  own  weapons, 
opponents  who  could  afford  to  treat  them  with 
contempt. 

Already  the  Labour  Party,  growing  in  numbers 
and  inertia,  was  beginning  to  find  the  I.L.P. 
shackles  irksome  both  to  self-respect  and  to 
ambition. 

The  position  inside  the  I.L.P.  itself  in  these 
determinative  years  was  interesting.  The  leaders, 
especially  *  the  Big  Four,*  Messrs  MacDonald, 
Hardie,  Snowden,  and  Glasier,  knew,  the  writer 
believes  and  believed,  perfectly  well  that  the  work 
of  a  lifetime  was,  if  not  actually  in  peril,  at  least 
stultified,  and  that  the  Labour  Party  was  beginning 
to  get  the  bit  in  its  teeth,  knew  in  their  heart  of 
hearts  that  all  was  not  right  with  the  party,  but, 
enormously  impressed  by  the  mass-power  of  the 
Trades  Unions  and  quite  honestly  believing,  as 
Karl  Marx  had  believed  before  them,  that  to  break 
away  from  the  Trades  Unions  meant  political 
extinction,  personal  and  party,  they  held  on,  hoping 
for  the  best. 

So  it  was  that  they  themselves,  all  absolutely 
honest  men  and  not  unidealist,  developed,  almost 


,  *  The  Brain  of  Labour  * 

unconsciously,  a  sort  of  minor  caucus  inside  the 
Independent  Labour  Party  itself,  discountenancing 
in  stolid,  *  official  *  fashion  the  incipient  revolt 
which  now  began  to  show  itself  and  which  came  to 
a  head  in  the  Huddersfield  I.L.P.  Conference  of 
1908,  where  it  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  writer  to  move 
the  *  reference  back'  of  a  portion  of  the  National 
Administrative  Council's  report,  which  raised  the 
whole  question  of  policy  and  tactics. 

It  was  Victor  Grayson  who  *  raised  the  devil.' 
Victor,  an  unknown  man,  who,  acting  as  stop-gap 
for  another  speaker  at  a  Colne  Valley  meeting  a 
year  or  two  before  the  time  of  the  conference,  had 
become  the  beloved  of  the  Valley,  much  to  the 
concern  of  the  Labour  Party  leaders,  who  had  in 
view  a  more  orthodox  and  '  safer '  candidate. 
First,  they  threatened  to  withdraw  the  official 
moneybags  and  speakers  from  the  Colne  Valley 
people  if  they  persisted  with  Grayson.  Colne 
Valley  told  them  most  politely  to  go  to  hell  or 
Westminster — these  Colne  Valley  people  were 
no  respecters  of  persons. 

Then  the  leaders,  as  always,  compromised, 
sending  out  a  peacemaker,  Mr  Philip  Snowden 
himself,  who  was  infinitely  more  tactful  and 
discerning  than  the  others,  and  offering  support. 
But  Grayson's  blood  now  being  up,  he  said  he 
would  not  run  as  a  Labour  man  at  all  but  as  a 
straight  Socialist,  that  he  did  not  want  the  Labour 
Party's  blessing,  and  that,  generally,  he  was  sick 
of  labour  leaders. 

Anyhow,  he  won,  standing  as  *  Independent 
Socialist,'  and  once  more  the  British  press  became 

89 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

lachrymose  with  visions  of  a  red  flood  pouring 
over  the  constituencies.  But  they  had  no  more 
reason  to  fear  than  in  1906,  after  the  return  of  the 
Labour  group.     To-day  they  have  no  reason  at  all. 

But  behind  the  treatment  of  Victor  Grayson 
as  individual  lay  a  much  deeper  question — the 
question  as  to  whether  the  I.L.P.,  still  remaining 
inside  the  Labour  Party  in  alliance  with  the  trades 
unions,  should  advocate  what  one  of  the  speakers 
called  *  clean  socialism  ' — a  phrase  that  stuck — 
or  whether,  with  the  mass  of  the  unions,  they 
should  continue  to  tread  the  broad  and  flowery 
paths  of  '  Lib-Labism  }  '  That  is  to  say,  whether 
the  LL.P.  should  set  the  pace  or  go  with  the  ruck  ? 

The  rebels,  or  '  wreckers,'  as  they  were  of 
course  called,  for  we  were  inclined  to  libel  in- 
surgent youth  by  label,  and  it  is  one  of  the  curses 
of  the  Socialist  movement  that  a  man  is  forced  to 
bear  a  label  of  one  kind  or  another,  secured  about 
one-third  of  the  votes  of  the  conference,  but  this 
was  the  high-water  mark  of  revolt  inside  the  LL.P., 
the  leaders  of  which  suffered  from  the  common 
illusion  of  most  leaders — that  getting  rid  of  the 
critic  meant  getting  rid  of  the  ideas  behind  him. 

How  right  the  rebels  were,  despite  the  hot- 
headedness  and  egotism  of  youth,  the  event  has 
shown,  and  it  is  of  significance  to  note  that  quite 
recently  one  of  the  highest  officials  of  the  LL.P., 
a  man  commanding  the  confidence  of  the  whole 
party,  told  me  that  he  had  given  it  as  his  considered 
opinion  to  the  survivors  of  '  the  Big  Four  *  that 
the  LL.P.  in  the  years  that  were  gone  ought  to  have 
set  the  pace  inside  the  Labour  Party,  even  at  the 
90 


I  *  The  Brain  of  Labour  * 

cost  of  temporary  success,  instead  of  letting  the 
trade  unions  crush  the  I.L.P.  initiative  by  sheer 
dead-weight.  Not  only  that,  but  after  several 
long  conversations  with  one  of  '  the  Big  Four  * 
recently  upon  the  condition  of  the  Labour  Party 
and  the  I.L.P.,  he  wrote  to  me  that  in  his  opinion 
*  the  personnel  of  the  Labour  Party  had  failed,* 
even  if  the  Party  itself  had  not  done  so. 

The  leaders  of  the  I.L.P.  are  beginning  to  find 
out  that  there  are  victories  which  are  defeats. 

Sitting  in  the  body  of  the  hall  at  such  conferences, 
I  have  often  been  amazed  to  remark  the  curious 
lack  of  imagination  which  even  gifted  men  display 
when  they  become  upholders  of  a  system.  In  all 
the  I.L.P.  and  other  conferences  which  I  attended, 
and  for  many  years  I  was  careful  never  if  possible 
to  miss  a  single  conference,  I  can  scarcely  remember 
more  than  half  a  dozen  efforts  by  middle-aged  or 
elderly  officialdom  upon  prickly  questions  of 
policy  to  understand  the  viewpoint  of  youth — 
especially  to  realise  that  youth  has  a  viewpoint. 
The  leaders  never  once  made  any  effort  to  meet 
the  rebels  privately,  with  a  view  to  exchange  of 
ideas,  and  as  good  comrades.  Youth,  rebellious 
youth,  in  almost  all  cases  was  tacitly  looked  upon 
as  the  enemy,  instead  of,  as  it  so  often  is,  the 
inspirer,  and  the  I.L.P.  leaders  themselves,  with 
one  or  two  exceptions,  were  in  this  not  one  whit 
better  than  their  successors  in  the  Labour  Party 
of  whose  stodgy  official  outlook  they  so  often  and 
rightly  complain.  We  often  at  such  conferences 
had  the  uncomfortable  feeling,  which  some  of  us 
at  least  vainly  tried  to  hide  from  ourselves — we 

91 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

were  still  very  young — that  the  leaders,  before 
they  took  their  places  on  the  congress  platform, 
had  already  met  and  decided  upon  their  plan  of 
action,  which,  as  they  often  stayed  at  the  same 
hotel,  was  an  easy  matter,  and  which  indeed  was, 
technically,  quite  within  their  rights.  But  it 
effectually  destroyed  the  spirit  of  comradeship. 

Against  youth,  and  the  fresh  ideas  of  youth,  as 
the  I.L.P.  grew,  there  raised  itself  a  sort  of  con- 
cretion— a  dead  wall  which  there  was  no  getting 
round  or  getting  through.  The  proof  of  which 
lies  in  the  fact  that  over  a  period  of  many  years, 
scarcely  a  single  *  rebel  '  found  his  way  to  the 
N.A.C.,  or  National  Administrative  Council,  as 
the  supreme  executive  was  called.  Sometimes, 
however,  when  a  more  than  usually  capable  youth 
looked  like  making  dangerous  demonstration  before 
the  wall,  the  men  behind  simply  reached  down  a 
fraternal  hand  and  took  him  over,  so  buttressing 
the  defence. 

Not  that  we  always  saw  these  things  at  the  time. 
Some  of  us,  idealist  and  hoping  against  hope,  did 
our  best  for  years  not  to  see  them,  hating  to  see 
sp>ots  on  our  own  sun.  But  all  the  same  the  sun- 
spots  were  there,  nor  were  we  ourselves  flaw- 
less. 

It  happened  at  a  certain  I.L.P.  conference, 
where  an  attack  upon  the  policy  of  the  little  mutual 
admiration  society  of  the  leaders  had  been  planned, 
that  we  understood  a  certain  rising  light  of  the 
I.L.P.,  an  ambitious  and  capable  young  man, 
was  to  support  us.  When  the  crucial  point  was 
reached,  his  voice,  to  our  surprise,  was  silent. 
92 


,  *  The  Brain  of  Labour 

When  we  next  saw  him  he  was  occupying  the 
platform,  having  been  elected  to  the  executive. 

Some  of  us  remember  the  speech  of  O'Connor 
Kessack,  the  Scots-Irishman,  now  dead,  in  which 
he  humorously  warned  the  *  rebels '  that  if  they 
went  against  the  leaders  they  would  never  *  get  on.' 

*  Look  at  me,'  he  said.  *  Once,  I  used  to  fight 
them.  Now  I  don't — and  look  where  I  stand 
to-day!  '  It  was  at  the  London  Memorial  Hall 
Conference  of  the  I.L.P.,  but  his  humour  was  a 
little  bitter  and  rueful. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  the 
rebels  were  sometimes  exasperating  and  *  difficult,' 
and  that  the  chairmen  of  these  congresses,  always 

*  official  '  and  orthodox,  were  scrupulous  in  giving 
opposition  speakers  a  fair  field.  Any  rebel  could 
catch  *  the  Speaker's  eye,'  and  it  sometimes  came 
to  me  that  the  leaders  were  very  glad  to  get  the 
attack  over  so  as  to  bring  their  own  batteries  into 
play,  and,  not  least,  to  bring  on  that  '  appeal  of  the 
gray  hairs,'  as  it  came  to  be  known  amongst  us. 
This  appeal  lay  in  the  keeping  back  until  the  last 
of  the  rebels  had  spoken  of  some  venerable  and 
orthodox  figure  who  had  probably  done  fine  service 
in  the  I.L.P.,  and  who  would  refer  to  '  hair  grown 
gray  in  years  of  service,'  etc.,  etc.  Our  congresses 
were  sometimes  horribly  sentimental. 

Many  years  after  the  *  clean  socialists  '  had  been 
more  or  less  *  cleaned  out '  and  Grayson  had  left 
the  I.L.P.,  I  tried  to  get  at  the  queer  psychology 
of  the  official  mind  by  one  day  in  a  London  street 
stopping  Mr  W.  C.  Anderson,  the  husband  of 
Miss  Mary  Macarthur,  an  ambitious  and  talented 

93 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

young  Scot  whose  death  was  a  severe  loss  to  the 
I.L.P.  I  asked  him  why  it  was  that  at  the  Hudders- 
field  and  other  conferences  the  leaders,  of  whom 
he  had  become  one,  never  tried,  just  as  human 
beings  if  for  no  other  reason,  to  understand  the 
view-point  of  *  the  young  men  in  a  hurry,'  as  the 
rebels  were  sometimes  called,  and  above  all,  why 
any  attempt  at  movements  counter  to  the  orthodox 
view  were  nipped  at  the  outset.  He  made  the 
reply:  *  You  see,  we  never  knew  where  such 
movements  might  get!  ' 

There  was  no  more  to  be  said.  It  was  an  answer 
worthy  of  Mr  Lloyd  George  himself  in  the  House 
at  question  time. 

Let  it  be  said  that  these  men  were  entirely 
honest  in  their  belief  that  nothing  should  be  done 
to  cause  any  rift  with  the  Labour  Party  and  with  the 
big  battalions  of  the  Trades  Unions.  But  the 
form  of  their  opposition  was  sometimes  unhappy, 
un-human,  and,  as  one  ventures  to  think,  uninspired. 

Not  that  the  LL.P.  in  such  matters  was  a  particle 
worse  than  the  average  political  party  and  was 
possibly  a  good  deal  better.  But  from  a  professedly 
idealist  party,  out  to  convert  not  only  the  older 
and  *  wickeder  '  parties,  but  the  world,  one  perhaps 
expected  something  more. 

Nothing  of  the  above,  however,  should  be 
allowed  to  obscure  the  really  fine  work  for  Labour 
which  the  LL.P.  has  accomplished.  It  cannot  too 
strongly  be  stressed  that  to  it  and  it  alone  is 
due  the  fact  that  there  is  a  Labour  Party  to-day 
and  that  the  national  standard  of  life  has  been 
raised,  and,  whether  we  agree  with  them  or  not, 
94 


,  *  The  Brain  of  Labour  * 

it  had  and  still  has  in  its  ranks  some  of  the 
most  idealist  and  unselfish  men  and  women  to  be 
found  in  any  movement.  But  it  has  paid  the  penalty 
which  the  modern  labour  leaders  are  to-day  paying 
— the  penalty  of  letting  the  leaders  become  the 
led  and  of  letting  *  policy  '  dominate  '  principle.' 
The  Labour  Party,  which  it  once  led,  has  long 
since  passed  out  of  its  control,  and  it  is  now  for  the 
I.L.P.  to  decide  whether  they  will  remain  inside 
the  party  or,  once  more  taking  neither  purse  nor 
scrip,  go  out  into  the  world  to  preach  the  gospel. 
But  the  call  does  not  often  come  twice  either  to 
parties  or  to  men. 

What  is  called  '  Socialist  control  of  the  Trades 
Unions  '  is  often  bitterly  complained  of  by  those 
who  think  it  immoral  that  the  socialist  tail  should 
swing  the  labour  dog. 

The  reason  the  I.L.P.  for  so  many  years  inspired 
Trade  Union  policy  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
best  educated  and  most  enthusiastic  trades  unionists 
were  almost  invariably  LL.P'ers  who,  not  being 
afraid  of  hard  work  and  anxious  to  convert  the 
Unions  to  socialism,  naturally  got  the  secretarial 
and  other  executive  positions  where  the  hard  work 
had  to  be  done.  Men  of  principle  and  ideals,  they 
as  inevitably  controlled  the  dead-weight  of  the 
indifferent  mass  as  brain  controls  body  and  as 
consciousness  always  controls  unconsciousness. 
They  were  the  brains  of  the  unions,  and  many  of 
them  still  are  the  brains. 

But  the  Independent  Labour  Party,  as  an 
organisation,  with  much  astuteness,  always  held 
itself  in  the  background  whilst  giving  the  inspiration. 

95 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

The  I.L.P.  was  Labour's  *  hidden  hand.*  When 
a  trades  unionist  who  was  also  an  I.L.P'er  spoke, 
he  did  so  as  trades  unionist,  not  as  I.L.P'er. 

Whenever  the  case  for  a  trade  union  had  to  be 
put  at  the  arbitration  board,  it  was  often  an  LL.P'er 
who  was  chosen  to  put  it.  The  LL.P.  got  its  point 
of  view  put  forward  not  only  inside  the  Unions 
and  at  the  Trades  Union  and  Labour  Party  Con- 
gresses, as  at  those  of  the  General  Federation  of 
Trades  Unions,  through  the  officials  who  so  often 
belonged  to  its  ranks,  but  also  outside  on  the 
public  platform,  where  at  every  demonstration 
was  to  be  heard  the  voice  of  the  LL.P.,  the  voice 
which  so  often  was  the  voice  of  Jacob — but  the 
hand,  the  hand  of  Esau ! 

Whenever  a  volunteer  was  wanted  for  *  the 
imminent  deadly  breach,'  an  LL.P'er  would  thrust 
himself  forward  with  that  two-fold  eagerness  of 
the  egoist  and  of  the  propagandist — that  blend  of 
self  and  selflessness  which  has  played  the  decisive 
role  in  the  Labour  movement. 

That  the  voice  of  the  LL.P.  is  fainter  is  due  to 
three  things.  First,  the  placing  of  the  LL.P. 
leaders  of*  policy  *  before  *  principle,'  with  resultant 
absorption  by  the  bigger  party,  then,  to  the  high- 
stomached  pride  of  the  big  battalions  of  the  Labour 
Party  and  its  leaders  ;  and  lastly,  to  the  coming  of 
the  direct  actionist,  due  to  the  war. 

It  may  be  that  the  I.L.P.  has  still  a  part  to  play, 
only  one  imagines  it  is  not  likely  to  play  it  within 
the  ranks  of  the  Labour  Party  with  its  tendencies 
of  to-day.  If  it  is  to  play  such  a  part,  it  will  have 
to  get  back  the  old  spirit.  For  already  it  has 
96 


*  The  Brain  of  Labour 

begun  to  betray  that  arterio  sclerosis  of  party — that 
fatal  clinging  to  old  ideas — that  impatience  of  new 
messages,  and  a  blissful  ignorance  of  the  significance 
of  the  new  forms  which  democracy  in  our  times  is 
assuming. 

In  the  I.L.P.  meetings  which  I  have  recently 
addressed  or  attended,  a  clinging  to  shibboleth 
and  a  stolid  indifference  to  the  problems  facing 
the  rising  democracy  were  noticeable  features. 
The  I.L.P.  is  moribund,  although  like  so  many 
men  and  women  who,  believing  themselves  living, 
are  dead  in  all  but  name,  it  does  not  know  it.  Time 
alone  will  show  whether  it  can  get  back  the  old 
inspiration  by  taking  up  the  old  cross,  if  necessary 
even  cutting  itself  free  from  the  rotting  body  of 
the  Labour  Party,  once  more  going  out  to  tell 
the  working  man  that  he  does  not  live  by  bread 
alone. 


97 


SOCIALIST    UNITY 

No  consideration  of  *  the  brain  of  Labour,'  as  I 
have  called  the  I.L.P.,  would  be  complete  without 
some  further  reference  to  its  old  enemy,  the  S.D.F., 
or  Social  Democratic  Federation,  which  has  already 
been  referred  to  and  which,  in  its  repeated  change 
of  name,  has  gone  through  various  phrases,  if  not 
phases.  In  addition,  some  mention  of  the  Clarion 
and  other  socialist  movements,  as  their  relation 
to  the  I.L.P.  and  of  the  attempts  to  bring  about 

*  Socialist  Unity  '  is  necessary  to  the  understanding 
of  the  evolution  of  the  Labour  and  Socialist 
movement  to  its  present  stage. 

For  many  years  the  S.D.F.,  chiefly  because  of 
its  redoubtable  leader  and  intellectual,  Hyndman, 
and  because  it  was  first  in  the  field,  was  regarded 
by  the  continental  socialist  and  labour  parties  as 
'  the  brain  of  British  Labour.'  It  was  orthodox 
Marxian,  and  orthodoxy  in  the  continental  labour 
movements  is  one  of  the  first  essentials.     It  taught 

*  the  materialist  conception  of  history,'  that  is, 
that  man  is  formed  simply  if  not  always  *  purely ' 
by  his  physical  environment — that  he  is,  in  a  word, 
the  creature  of  circumstance.  And  it  naturally 
reserved  its  choicest  denunciations  for  the  I.L.P. 
comrades  who,  in  remaining  in  the  Labour  Party, 
98 


*  Socialist  Unity  ' 

the  dust  of  which  the  S.D.F.  had  shaken  off  the 
soles  of  its  feet,  had,  in  the  language  of  the  time, 
'  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal.'  Not  that  the  S.D.F., 
once  more,  after  manifold  turnings,  with  its  old 
name,  has  essentially  changed  either  in  phraseology 
or  concept. 

Democracy,  especially  Socialist-Democracy,  de- 
velops its  own  dogmas  and  betrays  such  a  tendency 
to  crystallisation  as  sometimes  puts  that  of  the 
churches  to  shame. 

This  tendency  to  the  crystallisation  of  every  word 
and  comma  of  the  Socialist  dogma  has  its  latest 
exemplification  in  the  resignation  of  Miss  Sylvia 
Pankhurst  from  the  Communist  Party  of  Great 
Britain,  her  reason  she  says  being  that  *  the 
comrades  intended  to  enforce  discipline  in  its  most 
stultifying  aspect.  Comrade  M'Manus,  as  chair- 
man, informed  me  that  they  would  not  permit  any 
member  of  the  party  to  write  or  publish  a  book  or 
a  pamphlet  without  the  sanction  of  the  executive. 
Those  who  may  differ  from  the  executive  on  any 
point  of  principle,  policy,  or  tactics,  or  even  those 
whose  method  of  dealing  with  agreed  theory  is  not 
approved  or  appreciated  by  the  executive,  are  there- 
fore to  be  gagged.' 

Even  down  to  the  Stuttgart  and  Copenhagen 
International  Socialist  Congresses,  in  1907  and 
1 9 10  respectively,  there  still  lingered  this  fetish 
of  the  S.D.F.  I  remember  even  quite  recently 
being  told  by  Danish  Socialists — surely  the  most 
idealless  and  materialist  of  all  continental  socialists 
— that  the  S.D.F.,  or  British  Socialist  Party  as  it 
had  then  become,  really  stood  for  British  Labour! 

99 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

As  has  been  stated,  the  *  S.D.F.,'  to  give  it  its 
old  name,  and  despite,  or  perhaps  because  of  the 
distinguished  intellectual  equipment  of  some  of 
its  leaders,  never  at  any  time  had  any  influence 
amongst  the  British  Trades  Unions,  and  this  fact 
was  beginning  to  dawn  upon  the  continentals  in 
the  years  preceding  the  war,  who,  for  the  first  time, 
regarded  the  I.L.P.,  and  rightly,  as  '  the  brain  of 
British  Labour.'  And  in  any  case,  the  soul  of  the 
I.L.P'er,  as  we  Clarion  Scouts  were  to  discover, 
is  not  the  soul  of  the  S.D.F'er. 

One  passes  over  '  the  three  tailors  of  Tooley 
Street '  of  the  Socialist  Party  of  Great  Britain,  as 
the  Socialist  Labour  Party  and  half  a  dozen  other 
mushroom  parties,  most  of  them  preaching  the 
gospel  of  hate  of  society  as  of  one  another — but 
all  finding  common  ground  in  their  hatred  of  the 
LL,P.  and  the  Labour  Party,  and  so  come  to  the 
third  movement  of  any  importance.  This  was  the 
*  Clarion  movement,'  which  never  really  was  a 
movement.  It  was  just  one  man  and  a  newspaper 
— it  is  true,  a  remarkable  man  and  an  excellent 
paper — Mr  Robert  Blatchford  and  the  Clarion. 
But  there  was  about  the  Clarion  cycling  clubs  and 
the  Clarion  Scouts  something  of  the  open-air — a 
free  and  human  outlook — that  free-lance  outlook 
which  sweetened  the  bitter  sectarianism  of  socialism. 
The  Clarion  Scouts  had  at  one  time  in  London 
alone  some  five  hundred  members  on  their  roll- 
call,  for  at  that  time,  some  of  us  *  seeing  visions,' 
dreamt  of  Socialist  Unity,  with  a  very  large  *  S  ' 
and  a  very  large  *  U.* 

We  had  many  of  the  Labour  M.P.s  on  our  roll; 

100 


,  '  Socialist  Unity  ' 

some  most  distinguished  speakers  and  writers, 
including  H.  G.  Wells,  who  wrote  a  very  nice 
letter  in  his  own  meticulous  handwriting  to  enclose 
his  humble  '  bob,'  St  John  Ervine,  Sidney  Lewis 
Ransom,  and  Robert  Blatchford,  and  we  gave  our 
services  to  any  section  of  the  movement  which 
asked  for  them,  acting  up  to  our  professions  of 
*  socialist  unity,'  having  both  I.L.P'ers  and 
S.D.F'ers  upon  our  books.  We  were  a  sort  of 
light  cavalry  of  the  movement,  making  our  forays 
all  around  London,  sending  our  speakers  into  the 
churches  and  chapels,  raising  Cain  in  respectable 
neighbourhoods,  and  entirely  intent  upon  the 
trifling  task  of  converting  the  metropolis.  For 
we  were  in  the  stage  of  magic  youth.  We  had  only 
to  wish  to  have. 

We  often  threw  what  we  called  our  '  flying 
column  *  into  Liberal  and  Tory  meetings,  and  one 
of  my  memories  from  this  time  was  that  of  bearding 
Mr  Lloyd  George  in  his  own  stronghold  of  the 
Queen's  Hall  and  seeing  the  little  Welshman, 
very  astute,  very  smiling,  and  very  indulgent, 
cocking  one  sardonic  eyebrow  at  that  corner  of  the 
upper  tier  from  which  we  hurled  socialist  defiance 
at  Liberals  generally  and  Lloyd  George  himself 
•in  particular,  demanding,  full-lunged,  that  we 
should  be  given  ten  minutes  on  the  platform  to 
move  an  amendment  to  his  resolution.  He  promised, 
but  alas!  even  already  he  was  beginning  to  suflFer 
from  that  shortness  of  memory  which  overtakes 
the  really  great  politician,  and  so  we  learnt  that 
even  in  the  Nonconformist  Conscience  a  gulf  was 
sometimes  fixed  between  promise  and  performance. 
L.      •  H  301 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


Labour  :    The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Yet  from  the  beginning  we  were  cold-shouldered 
by  the  leaders  of  the  I.L.P.,  some  of  whom  were 
beginning  to  develop  a  very  pretty  quarrel  with 
Robert  Blatchford,  and  the  branches  of  which 
boycotted  us.  The  whole  '  Clarion  movement,' 
as  such,  and  although  the  cycling  clubs  and  club- 
houses still  persist,  fizzled  out  a  few  years  after  the 
Scouts  had  started  in  1 906,  the  beginning  of  the  end 
coming  when  Mr  Blatchford  wrote  his  now  famous 

*  German  Peril '  articles,  his  militant  attitude  upon 
the  war  giving  it  its  coup  de  grace. 

The  Clarion  movement  opened  the  eyes  of  some 
of  us  to  the  slight  differences  between  democratic 
theory  and  democratic  practice.  The  bitterness 
of  the  comrades  of  the  socialist  parties  whom  we 
were  trying  to  unite  was  to  us  a  constant  source 
of  astonishment. 

No  movement  surely  has  ever  been  such  a  prey 
to  sectarianism  as  the  Labour  movement,  although 
the  rank  and  file  were  very  much  better  than  their 
leaders,  and  sectarianism,  which  in  the  later  stages 
of  a  movement  betrays  weakness,  in  the  earlier 
stages  shows  virility  of  outlook.  Not  only  were 
the  leaders  in  almost  any  party  often  quietly  and 
bitterly  hostile  to  the  leaders  in  the  rival  socialist 
parties,  not  fearing  to  show  it  both  by  pen  and 
tongue,  but  they  were  often  deeply  jealous  and 
even  hateful  of  one  another  inside  their  own  party. 
In  the  I.L.P.  itself,  for  example,  the  personal 
dislike  of  two  or  three  of  the  leaders  for  one  another 
was  common  knowledge  in  the  party,  but  whenever 

*  the  system  '  was  threatened,  all  differences  were 
smoothed  over  and  a  united  face  shown  to  the 
102 


*  Socialist  Unity  * 

enemy  within  the  ranks.  We  had  our  tense 
moments,  when  it  looked  as  though  an  open  breach 
would  come,  notably  at  the  Edinburgh  I.L.P. 
conference  in  1908,  when  a  passage  between  two 
of  the  leaders  on  the  platform  will  not  easily  be 
forgotten,  but  generally  the  appearance  of  unity 
was  held,  impregnable. 

This  sectional  jealousy  pursued  us  everywhere 
— even  into  the  International  Congresses  where 
at  least,  for  decency's  sake,  we  did  what  was  possible 
to  keep  up  appearances.  At  these  congresses,  the 
rival  British  socialist  parties  were  outwardly  polite, 
but  in  secret  showing  their  teeth,  and  behind  the 
scenes  of  the  British  delegates'  *  united  '  meetings 
there  was  often  a  general  atmosphere  of  '  snarley- 
yow,'  varied  by  that  of  an  ominous  politeness,  and 
I  think  I  am  one  of  the  very  few  who  can  lay  hand 
on  heart  and  say  that  I  have  never  had  direct 
quarrel  with  any  man  in  the  Labour  and  Socialist 
movement. 

One  of  those  little  incidents  so  typical  of  this 
stage  happened  to  the  writer.  It  was  just  before 
one  of  the  sessions  of  the  International  Congress 
at  Stuttgart  when  I  met  in  the  street  one  of  the 
I.L.P.  leaders  who  has  been  chairman  of  the  Labour 
Party  in  the  House.  He  said  to  me  in  tones  of 
low,  angry  protest:  '  Why  are  you  representing 
an  S.D.F.  branch  .?  Why  not  an  I.L.P.  } '  At 
that  time,  being  fervent  for  socialist  unity,  I 
answered  with  some  heat:  *  I  would  as  soon 
represent  the  one  as  the  other.  Are  we  not  all 
Socialists  ?  ' 

He    turned    away,    and    from    that    moment, 

103 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

although  we  had  been  upon  friendly  terms  and 
had  spoken  from  the  same  platform  more  than 
once,  I  do  not  think  we  ever  again  exchanged  a 
word.  To  suggest  that  Socialists  were  '  united  * 
or  stood  for  the  same  thing  was  the  sin  unforgivable. 
And  one  is  bound  to  say  that  the  leaders  were  right. 
We  were  not  united  in  any  way.  They  took  good 
care  of  that.  There  was  nothing  *  big  '  about 
many  of  these  men  and  women. 

It  was  at  the  next  congress,  that  at  Copenhagen, 
that  poor  Harry  Quelch,  that  faithful  watchdog  of 
the  S.D.F.,  a  man  not  only  brilliant,  but  of  sterling 
worth,  hearing  a  comrade  say  that  he  thought 
the  I.L.P.  delegate  we  had  elected  to  one  of  the 
honorary  positions  in  connection  with  the  British 
section  was  sincere,  growled:  *  **  Sincere!  "  Never 
trust  an  I.L.P.  leader.  Expect  the  worst  from  him. 
They're  all  the  same.' 

I  am  afraid  we  were  all  rather  like  quarrelling 
children,  and  the  titter  which  went  through  a  joint 
conference,  in  which  some  I.L.P'ers  and  S.D.F'ers 
had  to  meet  the  trades  unionists,  upon  seeing 
across  the  wall  behind  the  platform  the  inscription : 
*  Little  children  love  one  another!  *  may  be  excused. 

I  myself  have  addressed  an  audience  of  perhaps 
a  couple  of  thousand  at  an  East  Ham,  London, 
street  corner,  a  district  which  at  one  time  looked 
like  making  Socialist  history,  in  the  endeavour  to 
woo  what  were  then  intended  to  be  my  future 
constituents,  with  the  trifling  disadvantage  of  a 
Liberal  and  Conservative  cross-fire  in  front,  and, 
at  my  back,  the  ribald  howlings  of  '  comrades  *  of 
the  Socialist  Labour  Party  against  my  unhappy 
104 


*  Socialist  Unity  * 

*  I.L.P.*  self,  whilst  from  under  my  ear  came 
screams  of  *  labour  fakir !  *  from  the  half-dozen 
other  *  comrades '  who  at  that  time  constituted 
'  The  Socialist  Party  of  Great  Britain.' 

Yet  it  was  in  this  very  same  district,  in  the  East 
Ham  Town  Hall,  that  I  remember  speaking  from 
the  same  platform  as  Sir  John  Gorst,  the  former 
Minister  of  Education,  who  was  not  afraid  to 
come  upon  the  same  platform  as  two  such  red-hot 
rebels  as  the  Countess  of  Warwick  and  the  writer. 
Even  this  '  Machiavellian  Father  Christmas,'  with 
his  white  beard  and  bland  spectacles,  Tory  though 
he  was,  set  us  Socialist  sectaries  an  example  in 
broad-mindedness,  and  I  have  a  vivid  recollection 
of  a  friendly  little  meeting  in  a  West  End  mansion 
at  which  Sir  John  exchanged  views  with  a  Socialist 
factory  girl  upon  the  subject  of  education,  frankly 
much  to  his  disadvantage,  but,  as  he  admitted, 
exceeding  enlightenment! 

If  it  be  imagined  that  any  exaggeration  of  our 
comradely  squabbles  has  been  indulged  in,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  go  through  the  old  files  of  Justice 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Labour  Leader  on  the 
other,  when  it  will  be  seen  how  rare  it  was  for  the 
party  leaders  to  give  the  rival  devil  his  due.  It  did 
sometimes  happen,  but,  on  the  whole  there  was  a 
lack  of  chivalry  and  fineness  of  feeling  in  the  relations 
of  the  rival  leaders.  The  rank  and  file  often  would 
have  united  on  common  ground,  but  the  leaders 
quietly  but  surely  kept  them  apart. 

Sometimes  we  of  the  Scouts  made  efforts  to 
bring  together  leaders  of  the  I.L.P.  and  the  S.D.F. 
upon  a  common  platform,  notably  at  a  big  *  socialist 

105 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

unity  *  meeting  which  we  held  on  one  Sunday 
afternoon  in  the  Shaftesbury  Theatre,  London, 
but  with  the  most  discouraging  results,  not  a  single 
I.L.P.  speaker  appearing  upon  a  platform  which 
drew  great  crowds  of  the  rank  and  file  of  all  sections 
of  the  movement,  some  of  them  travelling  from 
places  as  distant  as  Liverpool.  LL.P'ers  and 
S.D.F'ers  would  come  to  our  dances  but  not  to 
our  platforms,  and  we  made  the  interesting 
discovery  about  Socialist  human  nature  that 
Socialists  would  dance  together  but  would  not 
speak  together.  What  we  failed  to  recognise  was 
that  these  differences  of  outlook  and  feeling  were 
not  accidental  but  temperamental — that  is,  funda- 
mental— in  other  words,  that  men  and  women 
calling  themselves  '  Socialists,'  misled  by  the 
external  and  the  transient,  that  is,  by  the  bread 
and  butter  objective,  as  by  vaguely  human  feelings 
common  to  all  the  sons  of  men,  losing  themselves 
in  a  forest  of  phrases  and  words  such  as  *  democracy  * 
and  '  humanity,'  and  imagining  themselves  there- 
fore to  be  headed  for  the  same  goal,  were  often 
nearer  in  temperament  and  feeling  to  some  of 
their  Liberal  and  Tory  opponents  than  to  one 
another.  It  is  the  thing  which  the  world  will  soon 
recognise  in  the  labour  movement  of  to-day.  It 
is  the  thing  that  will  yet  cleave  that  movement 
from  crown  to  heel. 

Men  and  women  are  united  and  divided  by  feelings 
by  temperament.)  rather  than  by  brute  economic  or  by 
class. 

That   is   something   which   Labour   has   yet   to 
learn. 
io6 


XI 


DIRECT    ACTION 

The  new  force  in  the  British  Labour  movement, 
making  its  appearance  for  the  first  time  as  a  definite 
policy,  and  since  the  war,  is  the  force  of  direct 
action.  It  is  the  force  which  has  changed  the 
course  of  the  world  movement  and  which  for  the 
time  and  since  the  war  has  swung  the  British 
movement  on  to  unfamiliar  paths. 

By  *  direct  action,'  I  mean  that  section  of  British 
labour  which,  for  the  advance  of  labour,  advocates 
the  use  of  the  strike,  to  the  partial  or  total  exclusion 
of  political  action;  or,  with  the  strike,  the  use  of 
physical  force  in  any  form.  The  immediate  goal 
of  the  direct  actionist  is  the  century-old  dream  of 
the  General  Strike,  when  all  the  workers  of  the 
country,  to  a  man  or  woman,  are  to  throw  down 
their  tools  and  hold  society  to  ransom. 

Here  we  must  be  careful  to  distinguish  between 
*  anarchy '  and  '  physical  force '  direct  action, 
two  things  often  confused. 

The  '  anarchist  '  may  favour  physical  force,  but 
he  may,  if  he  be  an  anarchist-communist  of  the 
Tolstoy  type,  be  opposed  to  all  physical  force  and 
to  the  taking  of  life.  *  Anarchy  '  does  not  necessarily 
imply  belief  in  force,  but  simply  refers  to  a  concept 
of  society  in  which  the  individual  will  be  supreme 
and   government  and  the  official   have   no   place. 

107 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

The    anarchist    says :     *  The    State — that    is    the 
enemy!  * 

And  indeed  this  is  just  the  difference  between 
the  anarchist  and  the  socialist.  The  first  does  not 
believe  in  organised  society — the  other  does. 

The  *  direct  actionist '  may  be  either  socialist 
or  anarchist.  In  Great  Britain  he  is  often  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other.  The  striker  usually  strikes 
because  the  other  fellow  strikes,  as  has  already 
been  pointed  out.  Not  because  he  has  any  political 
creed,  or  because  he  wants  to  be  a  saviour  of  society. 
He  wants  to  save  himself. 

The  coming  of  direct  action  into  the  Trade 
Unions  of  Great  Britain  has  undoubtedly  marked 
the  most  revolutionary  change  which  the  policy  of 
the  Labour  movement  has  ever  known.  It  is  an 
incursion  which  has  staggered  not  only  society  but 
the  labour  leaders  themselves,  who  take  quite  a 
lot  of  staggering.  How  much  the  labour  leaders 
at  least  have  to  fear  from  the  new  incursion  will 
be  demonstrated  in  the  following. 

As  we  have  already  seen  in  the  chapter  on  *  The 
War  and  Demos,*  direct  action,  as  a  fixed  policy, 
whether  of  the  peaceful  strike,  the  armed  strike,  or 
sabotage — the  French  syndicalist  expression  for 
the  smashing  of  machinery  and  the  destruction 
of  property — until  the  war,  never  appealed  to  the 
British  temperament.  It  found  its  original  and 
natural  appeal  in  the  Latin  mind  in  the  latter  '8o's 
and  at  one  time  spread,  mercurial,  through  the 
French  and  Italian  unions,  notably  through  the 
famous  Confederation  G^ndrale  du  Travail  of 
France.  And  it  still  grips  the  Latin  mind. 
zo8 


'  Direct  Action  * 

The  British  workman,  it  is  true,  often  went  on 
strike  before  the  war,  but  he  did  so,  not  from 
choice  and  certainly  not  from  settled  policy,  but 
as  alternative  to  advance  by  parliament  and  because 
of  some  immediate  dispute.  The  *  syndicalist,' 
as  the  continental  direct  actionist  was  called,  went 
on  strike  because  he  liked  it,  because  he  believed 
in  direct  action  as  a  policy,  and  because  he  hated 
parliament  and  the  politician — often,  it  must  be 
confessed,  with  excellent  reason. 

But  in  our  day,  the  Bolshevik  is  the  direct  actionist 
par  excellence.  The  Bolshevik,  in  theory,  is  not 
anarchist,  but  State  Socialist — or,  rather,  he  was 
State  Socialist.  Lenin's  original  concept  of  the 
Russian  administration  was  a  centralised  bureau- 
cracy with  a  horde  of  officials.  The  thing  that 
forced  his  hands,  made  him  abandon  Socialism 
and  adopt  *  State  Capitalism,'  as  he  has  now  con- 
fessed he  has  done  in  the  Krasnaya  Nov  or  Red 
News^  was  human  nature — Russian  human  nature. 
He  found  that  humanity  will  not  work  for  love — 
it  still  needs  the  incentive  of  profit. 

What  has  actually  happened  to  Russia  under  the 
Bolshevist  regime  is  that  it  has  drifted  back  to 
autocracy  in  another  form  than  that  of  the  Czar. 
Democracy  in  our  day  always  trends  to  bureaucracy, 
that  is,  autocracy. 

But  in  Russia,  as  in  Ireland,  there  is  a  deeply 
ingrained  individualism  with  which  even  Lenin 
has  had  to  reckon.  That  is  why,  despite  the  Lenin 
Dictatorship,  Soviets  have  been  formed  throughout 
the  country,  these  Soviets  being  practically  '  working 
men's  committees  '  for  local  administration.    They 

109 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

are  the  direct  enemies  of  bureaucratic  centralisation, 
and  between  these  two  forces,  of  Lenin  the  bureau- 
crat on  the  one  hand,  and  Michael  the  muhzik  on 
the  other,  Russia  will  be  torn. 

All  this  is  essential  to  the  understanding  of  the 
bolshevik  direct  action  propaganda  in  the  British 
unions,  which  aims  at  the  creation  of  *  Workmen's 
and  Soldiers'  Councils '  as  in  Russia  after  the 
Revolution,  and  even  so  recently  as  1920, 
whilst  I  was  in  Wales,  the  proposition  for  the 
formation  of  what  amounted  to  local  Soviets  inside 
certain  unions  was  being  seriously  advocated  by  a 
well-known  labour  leader. 

Democracy  is  always  playing  hide  and  seek 
with  itself.  It  imagines  that  by  changing  the  form, 
it  changes  the  character,  that  by  changing  the 
propaganda  it  changes  the  propagandist.  And  so 
it  is  that  the  Bolsheviks  in  the  British  Unions 
claim  that  the  ballot  can  never  end  the  private 
property  and  ownership  rule  of  capitalism,  the 
bullet  is  the  thing,  because,  as  they  very  definitely 
state  in  press  and  on  platform,  and  to  quote  the 
words  of  one  of  their  principal  British  exponents  : 
*  Persuasion  is  useless.  The  minority  who  own 
everything  cannot  be  converted.  We  aim  at 
power,  not  persuasion.'  Bolshevism  is  the  first 
deliberate  appeal  to  force  by  democracy. 

And  so  it  talks  of  developing  its  own  organisation 
inside  the  capitalist  system,  instead  of  trying  to 
capture  the  enemy's  organisation,  and  so  hopes  that 
the  Bolshevist  organisation  will  one  day  edge  out 
and  replace  the  existing  system. 

The  instrument  they  propose  to  use  in  the  first 
110 


*  Direct  Action  * 

place  is  the  Workers*  Committee  or  Soviet,  which 
is  to  replace  parliament  and  centralised  administra- 
tion by  the  official.  They  say  that  the  Shop 
Stewards*  movement  and  the  establishment  of 
Workers'  Committees  in  the  workshops  of  the 
country  are  the  counterpart  of  the  Russian  Soviet 
organisation,  adding  that  the  French  delegues  de 
Vatelier  and  the  German  W erkst'dttenverttrauens- 
miinner  exactly  correspond  to  the  British  Shop 
Stewards.  The  Soviet,  they  say,  is  a  synthesis  of 
the  industrial  and  political  aspects  of  the  working- 
class  movement  of  to-day,  and  it  is  through  the 
development  of  the  Soviet  that  the  social  revolution 
is  to  come  and,  in  their  own  words,  *  humanity  be 
saved.' 

Poor  fools ! 

The  bomb,  the  bullet,  and  the  barricade  arc  to 
be  used,  if  necessary.  These  are  to  be  led  up  to 
by  encouraging  the  British  workers  to  strike  on 
all  and  every  occasion — for  any  or  no  reason  'just 
to  keep  their  hands  in  '  and  to  get  them  accustomed 
to  the  revolutionary  idea.  The  strike  is  first  perhaps 
to  be  peaceful;  then  armed;  then  sabotage  is  to  be 
practised  .  .  .  and  then  presumably  hell  is  to  break 
loose. 

Only,  the  day  after  '  the  revolution,'  if  it  comes, 
there  will  come  the  counter-revolution.  The 
barricades  will  be  taken  back  by  the  comrades  of 
the  men  who  man  them.  And  the  whole  direct 
action  structure  will  dissolve  into  thin  air,  even 
as  the  bolshevik  structure  has  dissolved  in  Russia. 

I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  here  the  words 
of  Mr  Robert  Williams,  in  The  New  Labour  Outlook. 

Ill 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

This  deluded  but  loveable  fire-eater  says :  *  When 
it  comes,  the  revolutionary  situation  will  be  the 
result  of  the  partial  or  complete  collapse  of  the 
present  order  of  society.  .  .  .  Mass  action  will 
produce  general  strike  organisation  on  the  lines 
of  the  Workers'  Councils;  this  will  challenge 
existing  political  organisation.  .  .  .  Insistently  will 
come  the  demand:  "All  power  to  the  Workers* 
Councils."  This  is  the  underlying  idea  of  the 
Soviets.  ... 

*  Parliamentary  democracy  is  a  myth  exploded 
by  the  war  and  the  developments  arising  from  the 
war.  The  Soviet  idea,  or  that  of  the  Workers', 
Soldiers',  and  Peasants'  Councils,  is  one  which, 
by  factory  and  workshop  representation,  goes 
right  down  to  the  roots  of  the  Capitalist  System 
and  destroys  it  at  its  very  foundations.* 

I  think  I  remember  Mr  Vernon  Hartshorn,  M.P., 
who  was  recently  said  to  have  resigned  his  post 
on  the  Miners'  Executive  owing  to  the  policy 
having  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  extremists, 
saying  something  like  Mr  Williams  a  few  short 
years  ago.  Within  another  few  years,  we  shall  see 
Mr  Williams  either  part  of  the  Labour  Party 
political  machine,  or,  because  he  has  fire  and  youth, 
broken  away  from  both  Communist  Party  and 
Labour  Party  to  help  to  lead  the  democracy  which 
is  coming. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mr  Robert  Williams  himself 
has  now  incurred  the  Communist  displeasure,  the 
bolshevik  paper.  The  Communist,  which  at  intervals 
runs  amok  with  a  hatchet  amongst  the  Labour  and 
Trade  Union  leaders,  lumping  him  together  with 

112 


,  *  Direct  Action  ' 

certain  of  these  leaders  and  all  the  Labour  Party 
M.P's,  with  one  exception,  under  the  heading: 
'  The  Secret  History  of  the  Attempted  Betrayal.* 
This  'betrayal  '  having  reference  to  the  miners* 
strike  of  192 1,  certain  leaders  being  referred  to 
as  *  traitors  '  and  their  leadership  as  *  treachery, 
treachery,  and  more  treachery.*  All  of  which 
bears  a  familiar  sound  to  those  of  us  who  more 
than  a  decade  ago  had  to  face  the  objurgations  of 
the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  the  Socialist 
Labourists,  and  the  Socialist  Party  of  Great  Britain  1 
It  is  the  eternal  squabbling  of  the  sects. 

In  the  meantime,  he  and  the  other  direct  actionists 
might  remember  one  thing — that  famous  Leeds 
Convention  of  191 7,  which,  hailing  the  Russian 
Revolution  with  joy,  attempted  to  form  Soviets 
for  Britain,  *  Bob '  Williams  himself  seconding 
one  of  the  resolutions.  Where  are  the  Soviets  in 
England  to-day,  Mr  Williams  }  and  what  happened 
to  the  Leeds  Convention  ?  Mr  Bob  Smillie,  the 
finest  character  in  the  Labour  movement,  who, 
I  venture  to  think,  is  to-day  a  disillusioned  and 
heartbroken  man,  will  supply  the  answer. 

The  bolshevik,  as  the  *  constitutional  *  labour 
leader,  will,  whether  he  likes  it  or  not,  one  day 
have  his  nose  dragged  back  to  the  grindstone  of 
fact — the  fact  that  nothing,  neither  strike  nor 
revolution,  successful  or  otherwise,  can  take  the 
place  of  the  spade-work  of  education  or  conscious- 
ness. The  proletariat  will  not  have  to  strike  their 
fetters  from  off  their  limbs — when  they  are  educated 
they  will  find  that  the  fetters,  which  they  themselves 
have  made,  will  have  fallen  off  themselves. 

113 


Labour:    The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Only  before  that  lesson  is  learned,  much  blood 
will  be  shed  and  many  dreams  will  be  broken. 

Which  is  not  to  say  that  the  Soviet  principle,  as 
a  counter  to  bureaucracy  and  for  the  proper  re- 
presentation and  protection  of  minorities,  is  not 
going  to  play  a  big  part  in  the  development  of 
democracy.  But  its  day  is  not  yet,  nor  can  it  be 
used  with  effect  until  long  years  of  education, 
spiritual  and  mental,  have  first  done  their  work. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  if  the  war  had  never  come, 
the  voice  of  the  direct  actionist  would  never  have 
been  heard  in  the  land.  The  war  made  way  in 
Britain  for  the  direct  actionist,  or  *  bolshevik,'  as 
he  is  often  called,  because  war  is  always  the  harrow 
which,  tearing  across  cherished  preconception  and 
tradition  in  the  human  mind,  makes  it  receptive 
to  the  seed  of  new  ideas,  good  and  bad.  Perhaps 
it  is  the  purpose  of  war  in  the  cosmic  economy. 

War  did  two  things.  In  the  first  place,  as  the 
newspaper  columns  of  the  last  few  years  have 
shown,  it  cheapened  human  life,  and,  driving  man, 
the  atavist,  back  to  primitive  instincts,  made  him 
prefer  force  to  persuasion.  The  strikes  from  191 8 
to  1 92 1  were  made  on  the  battlefields  of  France. 
Any  statesman  who,  in  future,  unleashes  the  dogs 
of  war,  is  also  unleashing  something  that  may  one 
day  tear  his  own  throat  and  the  throat  of  society. 

Secondly,  in  its  demand  for  man-power,  it 
forced  up  the  standard  of  living  and,  as  has  been 
pointed  out,  giving  the  taste  of  power  in  the  mouth, 
made  the  worker  discontented:  a  discontent  divine 
or  damnable  just  as  you  like  to  look  at  it. 

But  it  is  all  this  mental  *  unrest '  which,  destroying 


*  Direct  Action ' 

his  powers  of  concentration,  has  made  the  working 
man  lazy  and  ready  to  listen  open-mouthed  to  any 
*  patent  panacea '  which  promises  to  give  him 
money  without  effort.  This  was  the  opportunity 
for  which  the  direct  actionist  was  waiting,  and, 
getting  his  inspiration  from  Moscow,  he  inoculated 
the  new  direct  action  virus,  nor  did  he  administer 
it  in  homoeopathic  doses. 

The  new  virus  *  took  '  most  readily,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  inside  the  Welsh  and  Scottish 
unions,  with  their  Celtic  extremity  of  temperament 
which  they  have  in  common  with  the  French  Celt 
himself.  The  Englishman  quickly  caught  the 
infection  but,  so  to  speak,  in  a  less  passionate  way 
than  the  Celtic  Fringe  and  certainly  with  less 
conscious  realisation  of  what  direct  action  meant. 

The  Irishman,  although  himself  Celt  and  extreme, 
here  as  in  other  things,  was  a  law  unto  himself. 
Nationalist  and  religionist  before  all  else,  he  was 
comparatively  uninterested  in  belly  as  opposed  to 
soul,  his  natural  tendencies  being  helped  by  the 
fact  that,  untouched  by  war,  his  body,  whilst  the 
war  lasted,  was  perhaps  the  best  fed  body  in  Europe. 
Then  that  taint  of*  Bolshevism,*  which  he  associated 
with  irreligion,  was  anti-toxin  sufficient  to  make 
him  immune  to  the  new  poison. 

The  conversations  which  I  had  last  year  with 
the  Irish  labour  leaders,  including  Mr  Thomas 
Foran,  the  president  of  the  Irish  Transport  Workers, 
and  Mr  Thomas  Johnstone  (like  Parnell,  an 
Englishman),  the  secretary  of  the  Irish  Labour 
Party,  made  it  perfectly  clear  to  me  that  direct 
action  on  the  industrial  field  would  have  little  appeal 

115 


Labour  :   The  Giant  zvith  the  Feet  of  Clay 

for  Irishmen  until  they  had  first  settled  their  own 
affairs. 

But  that  the  Bolshevist  wedge  has  met  with  a 
certain  success  and  split  the  European  Unions  up 
to  a  point  is  shown,  for  example,  by  the  most 
powerful  trade  union  federation  in  the  world — 
that  of  the  Confederation  G^nerale  du  Travail  of 
France,  which,  at  Lille,  in  1921,  cast  nearly  as 
many  votes  for  Joining  Lenin's  Third  International 
as  remaining  with  the  International  Trades  Union 
Federation  at  Amsterdam — the  older  and  orthodox 
body.  At  their  previous  congress  the  Leninites 
only  scored  less  than  half  the  votes  cast. 

The  Moscow  policy  has  in  fact  cleft  the  French 
Labour  movement  as  it  may  one  day  cleave  the 
British,  and  has  rendered  it  powerless.  Two  years 
ago  there  were  1,700,000  members  affiliated  to 
the  French  Confederation,  which  is  the  Trade 
Union  Congress  of  France.  To-day  there  are  not 
more  than  500,000. 

What  success  the  new  direct  action  propaganda 
is,  however,  likely  ultimately  to  have  in  the  British 
Unions  may  be  forecasted  from  the  result  of  the 
attempts  already  made  in  pre-war  days  to  convert 
the  British  trade  unionist  from  political  to  direct 
action. 

In  the  year  19 10,  one  of  the  first  and  most 
determined  attempts  in  our  times  to  bring  about 
this  conversion  was  made  by  the  famous  French 
syndicalist  leader,  Madame  Sorgue.  This  lady, 
once  regarded  by  the  Portuguese  government  as 
so  dangerous  that  they  did  her  the  honour  of 
giving  her  a  Portuguese  warship  to  escort  her  out 
116 


*  Direct  Action  * 

of  the  country,  was  a  remarkable  though  typical 
example  of  the  Latin  direct  actionist,  and  had  been 
a  leader  in  the  great  Milan  and  Parma  strikes. 
Like  so  many  of  those  other  Amazons  of  the  Red 
Army,  she  was  an  aristocrat,  her  father  being 
Durand  de  Gros,  the  French  philosopher,  and 
her  uncle,  Estomine,  having  been  the  Senior 
Admiral  of  the  Czar's  Baltic  Fleet. 

She  paid  one  of  her  first  visits  to  the  writer,  with 
the  object  of  enlisting  the  aid  of  a  labour  weekly 
of  which  he  was  then  acting  editor,  and  with  that 
grotesque  failure  to  grasp  the  psychology  of  the 
British  workman  so  common  to  her  type,  from 
Bakunin  in  the  *5o's  to  Lenin  in  the  twentieth 
century,  confided  to  him  her  belief  that  the  British 
workman  was  about  to  throw  his  leaders  to  the 
dogs,  abandon  political  action,  and  bring  *  the 
revolution  '  by  the  General  Strike.  She  had  already 
had  what  she  called  *  un  grand  succes,'  and  at  that 
time  regarded  Mr  Havelock  Wilson,  the  leader 
of  the  Seamen's  and  Firemen's  Union,  and,  during 
the  war,  the  most  militant  anti-German  in  the 
country,  of  all  men,  as  the  man  of  all  the  British 
Labour  leaders  most  advanced  towards  syndicalism 
and  direct  action! 

And  this  lady  had  many  *  grands  succes.^  Amongst 
the  seamen  and  firemen  in  Glasgow,  Liverpool, 
and  the  other  seaports  she  had  tumultuous  reception. 
These,  of  all  men,  owing  to  their  calling,  the  least 
organisable  as,  in  labour  matters  at  any  rate,  least 
educated  and  understanding,  naturally  cheered 
like  thunder  when  *  Sorgue,'  as  she  liked  to  be 
called,  spoke  to  them  of  revolution  and  of  *  tyrants  ' 

L.  I  117 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

in  their  own  tongue,  for  she  was  an  accomplished 
linguist.  They  cheered  her  exactly  as  their  suc- 
cessors in  England  to-day  are  cheering  the  Sorgues 
of  our  time — but  they  would  also  have  cheered 
her  had  she  spoken  on  Einstein's  theory  of  relativity, 
for  she  was  a  slashing,  picturesque  figure,  a  tall, 
narrow-hipped,  full-busted  woman — a  real  *  angel 
of  the  revolution.* 

I  was  also  on  the  platform  when  Tom  Mann, 
perhaps  England's  most  redoubtable  strike  leader, 
a  little  later  launched  what  was  to  be  the  call  to 
revolution,  but  it  fizzled  out  like  a  damp  squib, 
and  although  I  believe  this  gentleman  is  still  direct 
actionist  in  theory,  he  is  in  practice  a  perfectly 
respectable  member  of  the  labour  movement. 

Sorgue  and  Mann  had  no  more  doubt  in  those 
days  that  '  the  revolution  '  was  going  to  break 
out  to-morrow  morning  in  England  than  Lenin 
had  after  he  came  to  power,  or  than  some  of  the 
Bolshevists  have  to-day,  although  they  are  beginning 
*  to  hae  their  doots.'  For  the  direct  actionist  is 
usually  a  hopeless  optimist.  Lenin  himself  has 
now  begun  to  learn  his  lesson — the  lesson  of  the 
psychology  of  the  British  worker — it  is  only  his 
misguided  followers  in  the  British  unions,  mostly 
drawn  from  the  ranks  of  very  callow  youth,  who 
still  believe  in  *  the  Day.'  If  ever  these  young  men 
translate  theory  into  action  and  erect  the  barricades, 
it  will  be,  literally,  a  modern  *  slaughter  of  the 
innocents,'  which  would  be  a  pity,  for  they  are 
often  deeply  sincere. 

Lenin  himself  asked  a  friend  of  my  own  who 
recently  spent  some  weeks  with  him  in  Moscow, 
ii8 


•  *  Direct  Action ' 

whether  a  certain  obscure  socialist  society  in 
Wales,  pledged  to  *  direct  action,'  with  a  member- 
ship of  perhaps  a  few  thousand,  '  did  not  represent 
at  least  one  million  of  British  workers  ?  '  Every 
time  a  great  strike  is  launched,  the  bolshevists  or 
direct  actionists  here  believe  that  it  is  the  loosing 
of  the  flood-gates.  And  every  time  they  are 
disappointed. 

And  they  are  and  will  be  disappointed  for  just 
the  same  reason  that  the  solider  thinkers  of  Labour 
have  always  been  disappointed  by  the  labour 
masses  whenever  great  issues  have  presented 
themselves:  just  because  of  one  simple  fact — the 
fact  that  the  direct  actionists,  like  all  mobs,  are 
unconscious — shouting  to-day  for  physical  force, 
to-morrow  for  something  else.  Lack  of  education 
and  unconsciousness  constitute  that  paralysing 
atmosphere  which  prevents  the  Labour  masses, 
hitherto,  on  the  political  or  industrial  fields,  in 
Great  Britain  or  outside  it,  from  getting  anywhere. 

As  the  strength  of  a  chain  is  its  weakest  link, 
and  as  the  strength  of  the  Labour  Party  itself  is 
measured  by  the  actual  number  of  men  and  women 
in  its  ranks  who  are  educated  and  *  conscious,'  so 
the  strength  of  the  direct  action  movement  inside 
the  British  Labour  Party  is  measured  by  the 
number  of  men  and  women  who  are  convinced 
direct  actionists,  not  only  by  feeling  but  by  thinking. 
And  if  I  were  asked  as  to  how  many  of  such  conscious 
direct  actionists  there  were  within  the  millions  of 
organised  labour  in  this  country,  I  would  reply 
with  full  assurance  that  I  was  over-estimating 
when    I    said    perhaps    fifty    thousand.      Possibly 

119 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

twenty  thousand  would  be  nearer  the  mark,  and 
the  majority  of  those  would  be  inside  the  ranks  of 
one   socialist   party — the   Communist  Party. 

But  if  this  be  so,  it  may  be  asked  why  the  labour 
leaders  do  not  expel  the  fifty  thousand  and  be 
done  with  it  ? 

They  do  not  do  so  for  two  reasons.  First  of  all, 
this  *  fifty  thousand '  have,  for  the  moment,  a 
power  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers  for 
the  reasons  given  in  the  preceding  pages.  With 
high  cost  of  living  and  lower  wages  following  on 
the  heels  of  war,  they  have  a  potent  weapon  for 
stirring  up  the  indifferent  masses,  who  neither 
know  what  they  would  be  at  nor  very  much  care. 
In  the  second  place,  not  having  had  the  moral 
courage  to  tackle  *  ca*  canny  *  and  the  indiscriminate 
use  of  direct  action  at  the  outset,  the  leaders  to-day 
find  themselves  powerless  to  do  so,  but,  like 
other  *  statesmen,'  hang  on  desperately,  Micawber- 
like,  hoping  for  *  something  to  turn  up.*  Kicking 
out  the  bolshevist  to-day  would  mean  kicking 
themselves  out,  and  no  labour  leader  is  going  to 
put  the  boot  to  his  own  rear. 

If  the  labour  leaders  did  to-day  what  they  ought 
to  have  done  years  ago — that  is,  tell  the  rank  and 
file  that  by  organised  malingering,  combined 
with  promiscuous  striking,  they  were  heading  for 
destruction,  the  leaders  well  know  they  would 
suffer  the  fate  of  men  like  Mr  Vernon  Hartshorn, 
M.P.,  who,  as  we  have  just  seen,  felt  himself 
compelled  to  resign  all  official  posts  on  the 
Miners*  Executive,  because  of  the  extremists. 

Of  course,  the  Labour  Party  continues  to  pass 

120 


*  Direct  Action  * 

its  fatuous  resolutions  formally  to  exclude  the 
Communists  or  Bolshevists,  who  are  so  sure  of 
their  strength  that  they  had  the  effrontery  at  the 
1 92 1  Labour  Congress  to  propose  to  join  the 
Labour  Party  without  accepting  its  constitution. 
But  you  can  exclude  a  party  without  excluding 
the  members  of  the  party.  The  Labour  Party  is 
honeycombed  with  bolshevism  because  the  Trades 
Unions  are  honeycombed,  and  you  can't  exclude 
a  Trades  Unionist  because  he  thinks  he  is  a 
bolshevik,  or,  believing  in  the  strike,  and  discon- 
tented, listens  to  the  bolshevik.  One  uses  the 
word  *  thinks,'  advisedly,  because  the  actual 
conscious  Bolshevists  are  but  a  tiny  minority  with 
a  unique  capacity  for  infecting  the  blind  majority. 

From  visits  to  Wales  and  Scotland  it  has  become 
painfully  clear  to  the  writer  how  chaotic  is  the 
mind  of  the  average  direct  actionist.  Men  who 
talk  glibly  of  forming  Soviets,  and  of  taking  over 
the  country,  including  the  mines  and  the  railways, 
not  only  do  not  even  know  what  a  soviet  is  but 
have  never  taken  the  trouble  to  work  out  a  practi- 
cable scheme  for  the  organisation  and  running  of 
society  if  malign  fate  ever  gave  the  direct  actionist 
or  Bolshevik  a  chance  to  fulfil  his  ambition. 

The  very  men  who  practised  sabotage  in  the 
Scottish  mines  during  the  miners'  strike  of  1921 
— that  terrible  exposure  of  Trades  Union  dissension 
which  will  leave  its  scars  upon  Labour  for  years 
to  come  and  which  showed  that  Labour's  *  Triple 
Alliance '  of  Miners,  Transport  Workers,  and 
Railwaymen,  was  but  the  *  Cripple  Alliance,*  by 
which  it  was  described  on  the  posters  of  a  labour 

121 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

newspaper — had,  in  the  mass,  and  always  excepting 
a  handful  of  leaders,  as  little  idea  as  to  how  they 
would  administer  the  mines  if  the  mine  owners 
handed  them  over  to-morrow,  as  to  administer 
the  country  itself.  The  mines  may  be  and 
possibly  are  badly  administered  to-day,  and  the 
wages  proposed  by  the  mine  owners  in  some  cases 
were  so  shamefully  low  that  even  the  Employers* 
Federation  expressed  its  disgust,  but  what  the 
direct  actionist  is  always  forgetting  is  that  not 
only  is  there  no  assurance  that  the  miners  them- 
selves would  administer  them  better,  but  that  they 
are  unable  to  give  any  such  assurance.  (I  am  here 
deliberately  speaking  of  administration  by  the 
miners  themselves,  for  the  demand  for  '  national- 
isation '  is  only  the  preliminary  to  *  socialisation,* 
and  in  the  minds  of  the  dominating  sections  of 
the  miners  there  lies  the  determination,  in  God's 
good  time,  to  administer  the  mines  for  the  nation 
upon  the  basis  of  the  old  Guilds,  for  the  new  *  Guild 
Socialist '  movement  has  permeated  the  Trades 
Unions  far  more  than  is  generally  suspected,  as 
witness  the  Builders  and  certain  sections  of  the 
Miners.) 

And  the  reason  they  are  unable  to  give  such 
assurance  is  because  the  Miners  are  not  only 
fighting  amongst  themselves  on  policy — and  even 
at  that  they  are  the  most  united  body  of  men  in 
the  kingdom,  which  tells  the  tale  of  the  other 
unions — but  in  the  one  and  a  half  millions  of  the 
Triple  Alliance  of  Miners,  Railwaymen,  and 
Transport  Workers,  they  have  so  far  been  unable 
to  compose  their  own  internal  differences.  There 
122 


I  *  Direct  Action  * 

is  also  that  other  fact,  patent  to  all  men,  that  the 
very  men  who  use  direct  action  in  their  demand 
for  the  nationalisation  of  the  mines,  don't  always 
vote  for  their  own  Labour  candidates — even  in 
rebel  Wales!  And  if  men  won't  vote  right,  how 
can  they  strike  right  ? 

To  avoid  misunderstanding  I  may  say  that  I 
personally  am  in  favour  of  nationalisation  of  the 
mines,  when  the  majority  of  the  people  of  this 
country  have  been  converted  and  trained  to  the 
idea — not  before.    And  that  day  is  very  far  off. 

The  strike  is  obviously  justified  against 
unbearable  wrong,  unremedied  after  persistent 
agitation  or  irremediable  by  political  action.  But 
how  many  strikes  since  the  war  and  up  to  the  time 
when  unemployment  had  become  a  national  night- 
mare, have  been  made  because  of  *  unbearable 
wrong  '  to  Labour  } 

If  a  General  Strike,  that  dream  of  the  Direct 
Actionist,  that  strike  of  *  all  trades  and  industries  * 
which  in  1834  was  also  the  dream  of  Robert  Owen, 
the  man  who  was  the  father  of  the  General  Strike, 
were  ever  forced  through  to  success,  a  most  im- 
probable result,  as  will  be  later  demonstrated,  and 
the  nation,  with  pistol  at  head,  were  made  to  stand 
and  deliver,  the  government  being  turned  over  to 
the  direct  actionists  and  a  Bolshevik  government 
sitting  at  Westminster  with  the  Red  Flag  over  the 
Victoria  Tower,  the  leaders  would  be  faced  the  day 
after  with  the  counter-revolution,  coming  partly 
from  the  disgruntled  Bolshevist,  as  we  have  seen  in 
Russia,  and  partly  from  the  average  British  working 
man,  who,  at  heart,  is  still  Liberal  or  Tory,  or,  at 

123 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

most,  *  reformist  labour,*  and  who  would  promptly 
give  up  *  direct  action  *  against  the  capitalist  for 
direct  action  against  the  labour  leaders  with 
unhappy  results.  For  the  direct  actionist  forgets 
that  what  is  accepted  by  the  working  man  without 
complaint  under  a  capitalist  government  would 
not  be  so  accepted  from  his  own  comrades  under 
a  Soviet  government.     That  is  human  nature. 

Many  lies  have  been  written  about  Lenin  and 
his  Russian  Bolshevist  regime^  but  the  following  is 
fact. 

One  of  the  leaders  of  the  London  typographers, 
accompanied  by  Mr  Dick  Wallhead,  the  chairman 
of  the  Independent  Labour  Party,  was  recently 
shown  around  a  printing  works  of  the  bolshevists 
in  Moscow,  the  work  set  for  each  day  per  man 
being  explained.  When  they  got  outside,  he 
turned  to  Wallhead  and  said:  *  Why,  Wallhead, 
any  ordinary  London  "  comp."  would  do  that 
work  in  two  and  a  half  hours!  *  Incidentally, 
they  learned  that,  even  at  that,  the  Russian  bolshevist 
compositor  refused  to  finish  his  day's  task,  and  in 
certain  factories  these  *  ca*  canniers  *  got  a  thousand 
cigarettes  per  month  per  man  to  keep  them  up  to 
the  scratch. 

What  would  the  British  labour  leaders  do  in  like 
circumstances  }  Would  they  shoot  the  very  men 
they  had  taught  under  capitalism  to  *  ca'  canny  '  ? 
Would  they  put  them  in  jail  }  And  then,  supposing 
the  tired  gentlemen  in  question  went  on  strike  } 
Would  the  government  forbid  all  strikes,  as  the 
Bolshevik  government  in  Russia  forbade  them  } 

And    so    the     General     Strike   and     so-called 

Z24 


*  Direct  Action  * 

*  successful  *   revolution   would  collapse    in   blood 
and  tears. 

Sorgue  herself  told  me  of  the  great  strikes  of 
Parma  and  Milan,  one  of  the  first  approaches  to 
a  *  General  *  strike  in  our  day,  which  she  organised. 
Even  though  at  Parma  the  women  lay  down  before 
the  locomotives  to  prevent  them  running,  the 
strike  failed.  M.  Briand,  the  present  French 
premier,  broke  the  great  French  General  Strike 
when  all  the  French  railways  were  held  up,  by 
simply  calling  up  the  strikers  to  the  colours,  as 
indeed  his  friend  Mr  Lloyd  George  would  have 
broken  a  General  Strike  in  this  country  had  it 
followed  on  the  heels  of  the  Miners*  Strike,  and 
when,  in  the  case  of  that  strike,  the  only  difficulty 
of  the  authorities  was  to  pick  and  choose  from  the 
thousands  who  stood  in  queue  as  volunteers   for 

*  citizen  defence,*  the  mass  of  them  working  men. 

The  most  complete  and  formidable  General 
Strike  which  has  ever  been  attempted  was  organised 
by  my  friend,  Mr  Charles  Lindley,  the  Secretary 
of  the  Swedish  Transport  Workers'  Federation, 
who  in  1909  told  me  the  full  story.  Although 
200,000  of  *  all  trades  and  industries  *  took  part 
in  that  terrible  six  months'  tug  of  war  between 
workman  and  employer,  the  men,  in  Lindley's 
own  words,  '  were  beaten  to  earth  at  the  finish.' 

The  grotesque  and  *  inspired  *  misrepresentations 
of  the  apostles  of  direct  action,  Lenin  and  Trotzky, 
as  of  their  Bolshevist  followers,  would  be  laughable 
if  they  were  not  so  dangerous.  So  long  as  the 
bolshevik  is  regarded  as  only  a  crook  or  a  crank, 
so  long  will  he  be  a  danger.    When  it  is  understood 

125 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

that  men  like  Lenin  and  Trotzky,  however  detest- 
able their  views  may  be,  are  absolutely  sincere 
fanatics  (all  fanatics  are  sincere!)  and  that  the 
same  applies  to  many  of  their  followers  in  this 
country,  the  better  for  society,  for  society  will 
then  know  what  it  is  up  against. 

I  have  personally  known  in  the  old  days  and  for 
some  fourteen  years,  three  of  the  members  of  the 
Bolshevik  government,  Kollontay,  Balabanov,  and 
Theodor  Rothstein,  and  know  them  all  to  be 
entirely  sincere  and  self-sacrificing  individuals  who 
would  not  for  a  moment  be  associated  with  a  govern- 
ment or  system  in  which  they  did  not  believe.  But 
these  people,  like  thousands  of  other  Bolsheviks  or 
direct  actionists  in  the  British  Labour  movement, 
have  been  seduced  by  phrases,  helped  by  the  spur 
of  indignation  at  the  dreadful  inequalities  of  present 
day  society,  for,  as  many  of  them  have  said  to  the 
writer:  *  Nothing  can  be  worse  than  the  present!  * 
Unfortunately  for  them,  to-day's  Bolshevik  Russia 
is  proving  that  very  clearly  to  the  world — but  in 
another  sense  than  the  direct  actionists  intended. 
Like  their  confreres  in  Great  Britain,  they  ignore 
everything  that  it  is  convenient  to  ignore — like  all 
humanity,  *  they  believe  what  they  want  to  believe.' 

*  We  are  hungry,'  said  Madame  Balabanov  to 
a  lady  acquaintance  of  the  writer's,  who  had 
visited  Russia  under  the  bolshevik  regime,  *  but 
at  least  we  have  our  freedom !  '  all  ignoring  of  the 
fact  that  Russia  to-day  has  been  filled  with  the 
spies  and  agent  provocateurs  of  Communism  to 
replace  those  of  Czarism,  all  ignoring  of  the  rain  of 
decrees  and  edicts,  and  even  though  every  principle 
126 


'  Direct  Action  * 

of  democracy  has  been  sacrificed  piecemeal,  under 
the  urgent  drive  of  circumstance.  *  The  Bolshevist 
believes  what  he  wants  to  believe.* 

But  the  convinced  bolshevik  comrades  in  the 
British  unions  at  least,  as  that  great  unconscious 
mass  calling  itself  bolshevik  to-day,  will  one  day 
give  up  direct  action  for  political  action — or 
inaction,  for  many  of  them  will  leave  the  labour 
movement  in  disgust.  But  before  they  go,  and 
before  the  other  bolsheviks  have  in  despair  reverted 
to  political  action,  they  will  succeed  in  splitting 
the  Labour  Party  into  two  and  possibly  into  three 
parts.  From  them.  Society  has  nothing  to  fear — 
the  Labour  leaders,  to-day,  everything. 

A  German  has  written :  '  There  is  nothing 
so  dangerous  as  the  man  who  has  nothing  to 
lose.'  But  the  British  workman  has  much  to  lose. 
That  is  why  he  will  not  pledge  the  fruits  of  a 
century  of  trade  unionism  upon  the  dice-throw  of 
direct  action. 

But  before  ten  years  have  passed,  I  venture  to 
prophesy  that  in  these  islands  Bolshevism  and 
direct  action,  in  the  sense  of  brute  force  and  despite 
the  fact  that,  as  mentioned  later,  certain  circum- 
stances may  force  Demos  into  its  widespread  trial, 
will  be  spoken  of  much  as  we  speak  to-day  of  the 
Comet  of  last  year. 

Product  of  the  Great  War,  it  will  have  flared 
its  way  across  the  political  firmament  and  will 
have  quenched  itself  in  the  void  which  men  call 
*  physical  force.' 


127 


XII 


GOAL    AND    TACTICS 


The  Labour  movement  stands  apart  from  all 
others  in  its  lack  of  cohesion.  Made  up  of  the 
most  divergent  elements  of  any  world-movement 
to-day,  it  is  a  movement  which  agrees  upon  nothing 
— neither  upon  goal  nor  tactics.  Demos,  the 
blinded  giant,  like  some  sightless  pachyderm, 
plunges,  now  here,  now  there,  without  sense  of 
direction  as  without  method.  The  organ  of  the 
Independent  Labour  Party  writing  on  the  Labour 
Party's  annual  congress  at  Brighton  in  192 1,  said: 
*  The  conference  has  dispersed,  delegates  have 
returned  to  their  districts,  and  still  we  lack  what 
most  we  need — 2.  plan  of  action,  a  co-ordination 
of  all  the  Labour  forces,  political  and  industrial,  a 
great,  united,  well-prepared  drive  forward  of  the 
working-class  movement.  .  .  .' 

The  goal  of  Mr  Arthur  Henderson  or  Mr  J.  H. 
Clynes  is  not  the  goal  of  Lieut.-Colonel  Malone. 
The  goal  of  Mr  George  Lansbury  is  as  far  removed 
from  that  of  his  friend  and  Communist  comrade, 
Nikolai  Lenin,  as  is  his  concept  of  the  idea  of  God 
removed  from  that  of  the  great  Russian.  Mr 
H.  M.  Hyndman's  heaven  would  be  Mr  J.  H. 
Thomas's  hell,  whilst  the  *  There  is  a  happy  land  * 
sublimation  of  the  nonconformist  trades  unionist 
would  for  Mr  George  Bernard  Shaw  be  a  very 
128 


•  Goal  and  Tactics 

fair  imitation  of  purgatory — although  one  rather 
suspects  that  Mr  Shaw,  being  a  saint,  needs  a 
touch  of  fire  and  brimstone  to  make  him 
perfectly  happy.  In  fact,  if  by  some  mistake  the 
rival  leaders  of  labour  ever  found  themselves 
together  in  heaven,  there  would  soon  be  helll 

The  man  in  the  street,  who  knows  everything 
and  nothing,  certainly  does  not  know  that  the  thing 
which  even  more  than  divergence  of  goal  makes 
the  British  as  other  labour  movements  like  a 
Jumping  Jack,  its  limbs  uncontrolled  by  brain, 
disarticulate  and  moving  independently  of  one 
another,  is  tactics. 

For  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  various  socialist 
bodies  have  been  at  one  another's  throats  upon 
this  question  of  tactics.  Rivers  of  ink  have  flown 
and  streams  of  blood  (on  paper)  have  been  shed 
by  the  leaders  of  the  rival  sections  upon  the  simple 
question  of  method.  For  years  the  columns  of 
Justice  like  the  Erne  in  the  ballad,  '  ran  redundant 
with  blood  '  ...  all  upon  tactics.  The  organs  of 
the  little  sectaries  of  the  Socialist  Party  of  Great 
Britain  (the  smaller  the  party  the  bigger  the  title) 
foamed  at  the  mouth  ...  on  tactics.  The  Labour 
congresses  became  apoplectic  at  times  on  .  .  .  tactics. 
Our  International  congresses  *  saw  red '  on  the 
same  question.  Our  movement  has  been  torn 
upon  tactics,  tactics,  tactics. 

You  may  call  a  man  a  blackguard  and  he  may 
forgive  you.  You  may  accuse  him  of  being  a 
seducer,  and  he  possibly  will  be  rather  flattered 
than  otherwise.  But  tell  him  he  has  no  humour — 
and,  especially  if  he  is  humourless,  he  will  forgive 

129 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

you  neither  in  this  world  nor  the  world  to  come, 
life  everlasting!     It  is  the  sin  unforgivable. 

In  the  Labour  and  Socialist  movement  we  also 
had  our  unforgivable  sin. 

You  might,  and  sometimes  did,  call  the  leaders 
of  your  particular  body  '  liars.'  They  forgave.  You 
stood  on  your  hind  legs  and  accused  them  of  having 
*  sold  the  movement  and  themselves  ' ;  and  they 
forgot  it  by  the  next  congress — perhaps.  *  Fakirs  * 
and  *  traitors  '  were  two  words  in  which  we  rather 
specialised  between  1909  and  19 14.  And  even 
those  wicked  words  were  forgotten.  But  one 
thing  the  leaders  never  forgave,  and  that  was  a 
difference  upon  tactics. 

I  have  seen  a  member  of  a  certain  Socialist 
Party  solemnly  *  court-martialled  '  for  writing  in 
the  columns  of  a  socialist  paper  outside  that  the 
tactics  of  the  party  and  its  leaders  were  and  had 
been  disastrous.  And  I  have  known  the  same 
question  of  tactics  more  than  once  to  cause  the 
rupture  not  only  of  political  but  of  personal  friend- 
ships which  had  stood  the  test  of  years. 

Some  of  us  at  this  time  were  just  beginning  to 
get  some  hazy  notion  of  the  significance  of  the 
recrimination  attaching  to  questions  of  tactics. 
But  none  of  us  realised  that  the  reason  we  were  so 
divided  upon  tactics^  both  in  our  individual  parties 
and  in  the  Labour  movement  as  a  whole,  was 
because  we  were  divided  upon  goal. 

The  Social  Democratic  Federation,  for  instance, 
visualised  a  sort  of  clockwork  heaven  *  at  the  end 
of  the  socialist  and  labour  road,*  in  which  every- 
thing was  to  be  run  by  highly  intelligent  if  rather 
130 


,  Goal  and  Tactics 

heartless  officials — something,  in  fact,  like  pre-war 
Germany.  The  dreams  of  its  leaders,  always 
excepting  such  splendidly  human  men  as  William 
Morris,  the  poet,  were  really,  although  they  did 
not  realise  it,  the  dreams  of  the  German  Junker — 
whom,   incidentally,  they  often  hated! 

In  the  Social  Democratic  paradise,  I  imagine 
that  classes  in  economics  were  to  play  the  major 
part  and  headwork  was  to  replace  the  harps  and 
hymnals  of  the  *  Pleasant  Sunday  Afternooners  * 
of  certain  sections  of  the  movement.  Man, 
Heaven  help  him,  in  that  paradise  of  intellect, 
was  to  be  a  perfectly  ordered  perfectly  functioning 
animal,  with  the  soul,  of  course,  very  properly 
eliminated  and  the  idea  of  God  sterilised  and 
labelled,  whose  bible  was  to  be  *  The  Material 
Interpretation  of  History,*  and  whose  gods  were 
to  be  of  the  earth  earthy. 

But  even  in  the  paradise  of  Social  Democracy 
there  would,  I  am  afraid,  be  a  serpent,  because 
there  would  be  an  Eve.  The  old  Adam  of  the 
Social  Democrats  did  its  best  to  keep  its  Eve,  in 
other  words,  its  wife,  outside  the  movement,  for 
the  S.D.F.  paradise  was  a  paradise  of  the  male, 
and  the  soul  of  Social  Democracy  is  a  male  soul. 
The  average  S.D.F'er  rarely  brought  his  women- 
folk to  his  branch  meetings,  even  when  they 
wanted  to  come,  and  certainly  never  encouraged 
them  to  do  so.  And  how  bitterly  some  of  them  at 
least  felt  about  the  tacit  relegation  of  the  woman 
to  a  place  a  good  deal  lower  than  the  angels  was 
shown  by  the  deep  resentment  expressed  some- 
times by  such  women,  leading  even  to  open  breach 

131 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

between  certain  undaunted  females  of  the  federation 
and  certain  magnificent  males. 

Mr  Belfort  Bax,  the  distinguished  metaphysician, 
and  a  prominent  member  of  the  S.D.F.,  even  went 
so  far  as  to  carry  his  metaphysical  conceptions  of 
*  the  weaker  sex  '  to  the  point  where  he  appeared 
to  rule  them  out  of  serious  consideration  as  humans. 
How  well  I  remember  this  really  lovable  man, 
sunk  in  the  fogs  of  intellect,  his  hands  resting 
on  his  stick,  once  leaning  across  the  table  of  a 
Scandinavian  restaurant  to  mildly  expostulate  with 
me,  when  I  had  ventured  to  take  seriously  the 
words  of  a  distinguished  woman  socialist  with 
whom  I  had  disagreed ;  *  But  what  does  it  matter  ? 
She  is  a  woman,  and  women  can't  think!  '  all 
oblivious  of  the  very  capable  lady  by  his  side,  his 
wife,  who  gently  ordered  every  act  of  the  great 
man's  life. 

She,  good  soul,  just  beamed  upon  him  as  she 
might  upon  a  naughty  boy  who  didn't  know  what 
he  was  talking  about. 

But  in  the  long  run,  even  the  S.D.F.  was  unable 
to  keep  out  its  Eves,  who,  fortunately  for  it,  brought 
a  saner,  a  more  human  atmosphere  into  this  move- 
ment of  the  intellectuals,  who,  it  is  only  fair  to  say, 
were  infinitely  better  than  their  dismal  and  certainly 
unscientific  creed  which  stresses  the  effect  of  his 
environment  upon  man,  whilst  ignoring  the  other 
half  of  the  medal — the  reaction  of  man  upon  his 
environment.  Determinists,  as  most  of  them 
were,  believing  man  to  be  the  creature  of  his 
environment,  they  yet  showed  a  very  real  self  sacrifice 
for  their  Socialist  faith,  and  the  writer  at  least  has 
132 


Goal  and  Tactics 

little  other  than  grateful  and  happy  memories  of 
the  little  band  of  devoted  men  and  women  with 
whom  he  worked  for  so  many  years  and  from  whom 
he  learnt  so  much.  Here,  as  in  so  many  other 
similar  sects,  religious  and  otherwise,  the  man  was 
better  than  the  creed;  and  the  rank  and  file  more 
open-minded  and  more  human  than  some  of  their 
leaders. 

The  goal  which  the  Independent  Labour  Party 
visualised  is  not  so  easy  of  definition  as  that  of 
their  enemy,  the  S.D.F.,  but  it  at  least  had  the 
merit  of  being  one  towards  which  women  and 
men  were  to  climb  together  hand  in  hand  as  good 
comrades  and  friends.  In  the  beginning,  at  least, 
it  was  a  sort  of  *  peace  on  earth  good-will  towards 
men  *  visualisation — a  sort  of  benevolent  modifica- 
tion of  the  orthodox  Christian  goal,  as  indeed  was 
to  be  expected  from  a  body  which  drew  so  many 
of  its  earlier  recruits  from  the  churches  and  which 
numbered  so  many  clergymen  amongst  its  leading 
adherents.  It  contemplated,  after  the  lapse  of 
time  necessary  for  the  I.L.P.  propaganda  to  do  its 
work,  a  society  in  which  everybody  was  to  be  more 
or  less  actuated  by  the  best  possible  intentions, 
at  times  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  good  intentions 
alone,  without  direction,  frequently  end  in  a  very 
unpleasant  place  indeed. 

The  I.L.P.,  in  a  word,  had  invincible  belief  in 
the  essential  rectitude  of  human  nature — a  belief 
that  was  at  once  its  strength  and  its  weakness. 
Intuitively,  it  recognised  the  god  in  man  and 
conveniently  ignored  the  devil. 

The  Social  Democratic  goal  of  the  Clockwork 
L.  K  133 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

State,  fortunately  for  itself,  it  scarcely  took  the 
trouble  to  consider.  Nor  did  it  give  much  of  its 
efFort  and  inspiration  to  practical  consideration 
of  the  form  which  society  might  be  expected  to 
take  under  Socialism.  When  we  on  the  I.L.P. 
platforms  were  asked  that  eternal  round  of  ques- 
tions by  the  man  in  the  street:  *  Who  was  to  do 
the  dirty  work  under  Socialism  ?  *  *  Where  was 
the  money  to  come  from  ?  *  *  Would  the  Socialist 
State  have  a  king  or  a  president  ?  '  we,  as  a  rule, 
facilely  sidestepped  our  questioners  by  saying  that 
the  future  could  take  care  of  itself,  forgetful  that 
the  man  in  the  street,  whom  we  looked  upon 
much  as  some  missionaries  look  upon  the  naked 
savage,  '  as  a  damn  nuisance  that  had  to  be  con- 
verted,' had  a  perfect  right  to  an  answer.  In  fact, 
we  refused,  cleverly  and  indefinitely,  as  some 
theologians,  to  define  our  goal. 

And  we  still  refuse  to  define  it.  And  still  the 
Social  Democrats  lose  themselves  in  definition. 
And  still  both  I.L.P.  and  S.D.F.,  or  rather  the 
S.D.F's  successors,  the  Communists,  quarrel  upon 
tactics.  And  still  the  Trade  Unionists,  heavily 
indifferent  as  to  goal,  save  the  immediate  goal  of 
more  wages  for  less  work,  ride  the  merry-go-round 
of  strike  and  congress  and  parliament,  and  so  the 
world  of  Labour  turns  upon  its  axis  as  unchange- 
able in  its  motion  as  the  earth  itself. 

It  may  be  that  the  earth,  and  therefore  the 
Labour  movement  which  covers  it,  is  not  intended 
to  be  other  than  a  school  for  imperfect  souls;  that 
neither  perfection  nor  its  corollary  '  consciousness  ' 
is  to  be  achieved  upon  this  plane;  but  it  is  to  the 
134 


'  Goal  and  Tactics 

everlasting  credit  of  the  Socialist  and  Labour 
movement  that  it  has  always  had  and  perhaps 
always  will  have  a  tiny  minority  of  deathless  spirits 
who  refuse  to  admit  it,  and  who  still  set  their  faces 
towards  the  Unknown  Goal. 

However  that  may  be,  the  point  which  is  being 
made  here  is  that  the  goals  of  the  various  sections 
of  labour  and  socialism,  as  their  tactics,  are  different. 
Tactics  in  the  Socialist  movement  have  been  largely 
determined  by  the  attitude  of  the  different  socialist 
bodies  to  what  is  known  as  *  the  Class  War.' 

With  the  exception  of  Great  Britain,  and  even 
there  not  excepting  the  Social  Democratic  Fede- 
ration and  the  Communists,  the  socialist  move- 
ments of  the  world  largely  base  their  struggle 
upon  belief  in  the  class  war  of  Karl  Marx.  Put 
simply,  the  theory  of  the  class  war  is  the  theory 
that  men  are  primarily  divided  by  classes,  and 
these  classes  divided  by  economic  considerations 
into  the  '  Haves  '  and  the  '  Have  nots; '  in  other 
words,  into  the  working-class  and  the  others. 

The  Communists  or  Bolsheviks,  as  the  S.D.F. 
before  them,  regard  the  doctrine  of  *  the  class 
war  '  exactly  as  some  theologians  the  doctrine  of 
predestination,  that  is,  as  beyond  argument,  and, 
incidentally,  the  Christian  dogmatist  is  not  alone 
in  the  possession  of  an  Athanasian  Creed.  The 
Socialist  movement  has  taken  over  *  the  bell, 
book,  and  candle  *  of  some  of  the  Christian  hier- 
archies; it  has  only  changed  the  names  and  the 
forms. 

The  Independent  Labour  Party,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  indeed  when  they  bother  themselves  to 

135 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

think  about  it,  the  great  mass  of  the  Trades 
Unionists,  deny  the  dogma  of  '  the  class  war,' 
and  are  accordingly  regarded  by  their  continental 
brethren  as  '  heretics.'  I  am  not  sure  that  excellently 
intentioned  gentlemen  like  Plechanov,  the  Russian 
Marxist,  and  his  countrymen,  Messrs  Lenin  and 
Trotzky,  who  hate  him  like  the  devil,  with  one 
or  two  of  the  same  type  in  England,  would  not 
cheerfully  send  the  deniers  of  the  class  war  to  the 
stake  with  as  little  compunction  and  as  entire 
sense  of  conviction  as  their  prototypes,  Torquemada 
and  Queen  Mary. 

Of  course  the  I.L.P.  with  its  usual  excellent 
judgment  of  *  how  much  the  other  fellow  will 
stand,'  has  always  skated  quickly  over  the  thin 
ice  of  the  class  war  in  the  International  Socialist 
Congresses,  and  even  at  times  has  given  a  very 
fair  colour  to  the  assumption  that  their  non-belief 
was  due  rather  to  lack  of  knowledge  than  to  original 
sin.  Indeed,  one  of  the  most  bloodthirsty  speeches 
on  *  class-war  *  lines  to  which  I  have  ever  listened 
was  that  delivered  by  a  prominent  and  professed 
pacifist  leader  of  the  I.L.P.  to  a  vast  audience  in 
a  certain  city  of  Central  Europe,  drawing  from 
them  universal  approbation.  When  this  gentleman 
came  down  from  the  platform,  he  asked  me,  still 
dazed  and  wondering  whether  my  hearing  had  not 
suddenly  become  affected,  '  How  I  thought  it  had 
gone  }  * 

Some  of  the  socialist  leaders,  very  like  their 
deadly  parallels  in  the  other  political  parties,  have 
a  salamander-like  quality  of  changing  colour 
according  to  environment,  forming  excellent 
136 


Goal  and  Tactics 

illustrations  of  *  Marx's  economic  determina- 
tion.' 

Once  you  admit  '  the  class  war  '  you  are  at  once 
more  or  less  committed  to  political  and  industrial 
tactics  of  *  war  to  the  knife.'  So  long  as  the  working- 
class  is  regarded  as  an  oppressed  class,  yearning 
for  freedom,  standing  together  homogeneously 
face  to  face  with  its  oppressors,  presumably  the 
leisured  and  professional  classes,  so  long  are  you 
committed  to  a  policy  of  revolution  rather  than 
evolution. 

Deny  *  the  class  war,'  and  instantly  all  mankind 
becomes  more  or  less  one,  something  like  the 
animals  in  the  Ark,  some  of  them  carnivorous, 
some  of  them  herbivorous,  but  all  afloat  at  the 
mercy  of  common  circumstance.  So  will  logically 
follow  policies  of  '  arrangements,'  of  *  reform,'  of 
*  understandings  '  and  *  alliances.' 

But  in  either  case,  the  policies  and  their  advocates 
are  at  loggerheads.  And  it  is  this  difference  of 
tactics  which  with  the  other  differences  mentioned 
is  doing  its  work  of  disruption  inside  the  labour 
ranks,  which,  however,  will  probably  mask  itself 
by  compromise  and  patching  up  until  Demos 
comes  to  power,  when,  like  some  hidden  plague, 
after  *  success  '  and  *  power  '  have  laid  bare  the 
weakness  of  a  party  without  consciousness  or 
ideals,  it  will  break  out  to  disrupt  and  to  rot. 

That  is  why  one  section  of  the  Labour  Party 
stands  for  evolution  by  parliament  and  the  vote 
and  another  section  for  revolution  and  the  strike. 
That  is  why  the  Labour  Party  which  has  nominally 
refused    admission    to    the    Communists    at    the 

137 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Brighton  Conference  will  be  plagued  by  them  as 
individuals  inside  the  party  as  Pharoah  was  plagued 
by  the  seven  plagues,  and  that  is  why  the  modern 
Children  of  Israel  who  stand  for  direct  action  and 
who  have  frankly  declared:  *  We  are  out  to  split 
the  Party,'  will  one  day  find  their  Moses,  who  will 
lead  them  out  of  '  the  house  of  bondage  '  towards 
the  Promised  Land,  which,  incidentally,  will  remain 
just  a  land  of  promise. 


138 


XIII 


PRESS    AND    PROPAGANDA 


British  Labour  is  only  able  to  support  one  Labour 
daily,  and  that  much,  as  the  Scotsman  joked,  '  wi* 
deeficulty.*  Germany,  even  so  far  back  as  1907, 
had  eighty-four  labour  and  socialist  papers,  many 
of  them  dailies.  Even  little  Denmark,  with  a 
population  of  three  millions,  had  and  has  some 
dozens  of  papers,  quite  a  number  of  them  dailies, 
and  Japan  at  one  time  had  some  fifteen  Socialist 
papers.  In  that,  for  those  who  can  read,  lies  the 
story  of  British  Labour. 

Of  course,  there  are  to-day  many  Socialist  and 
Labour  periodicals  in  existence,  some  of  them 
excellent  of  their  type,  from  papers  like  The  New 
Age  to  others  like  Foreign  Affairs  and  The  Socialist 
Review,  but  they  reach  only  a  tiny  section  of  the 
public. 

Those  of  us  who  have  been  behind  the  scenes 
of  Labour  papers,  know  something  of  the  almost 
insuperable  difficulties  with  which  the  Labour 
journalist  has  to  contend,  particularly  that  insuper- 
able difficulty — the  British  working  man. 

One  of  the  first  Socialist  papers,  and  perhaps, 
except  Justice,  the  oldest,  was  the  Clarion,  still  in 
existence,  of  which  Robert  Blatchford  was  the 
founder  in  1891  and  of  which  he  is  still  the  editor. 

One  day  Robert  Blatchford  (*  Nunquam  ')  told 

139 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

me  the  story  of  the  Clarion,  of  how,  greatly  daring, 
Alexander  M.  Thompson  (then  *  Dangle,'  now 
the  capable  Labour  correspondent  of  the  Daily 
Mail),  Fay  (*  the  Bounder '),  and  himself,  took 
their  courage  and  their  fortunes  in  their  hands 
(both  Blatchford  and  Thompson  were  at  that 
time  highly  paid  journalists  upon  a  big  northern 
newspaper)  and  launched  the  little  Clarion,  destined 
to  do  more  permeation  of  England  for  Socialism 
than  any  socialist  paper  that  has  followed  it.  It 
has  been  said,  with  some  justice,  that  *  there  is 
more  floating  socialism  in  England  than  in  any 
other  country  in  the  world,'  but  if  that  be  so  it  is 
largely  due  to  the  old  Clarion,  of  which  even  to-day 
its  old  readers,  many  of  whom  have  found  them- 
selves polaric  to  Robert  Blatchford  in  his  later 
*  militarist  *  evolution,  speak  with  warm  personal 
affection. 

The  Clarion,  like  Justice,  the  organ  of  the  S.D.F., 
and  the  Labour  Leader,  the  organ  of  the  I.L.P., 
is  a  weekly.  Its  circulation  stood  for  a  long  period 
before  the  war  at  about  60,000,  reached  after 
nearly  twenty  years'  hard  labour,  but  because  it 
was  so  often  quoted  in  the  pulpit  and  in  the  columns 
of  the  capitalist  press,  it  had  an  influence  quite 
outside  its  sales.  But  the  Clarion,  I  believe  I  am 
correct  in  saying,  never  was  a  paying  proposition, 
and  even  when  it  was  at  its  zenith  its  editor  once 
confessed  to  me  that  neither  he  nor  his  colleague, 
the  sub-editor,  Mr  Alexander  Thompson,  could 
live  were  it  not  for  their  journalistic  contributions 
to  the  big  papers  outside. 

As  Mr  Blatchford,  perhaps  the  greatest  writer 
140 


,  Press  and  Propaganda 

of  simple  English  living  to-day,  whose  pen  has 
been  compared  to  that  of  Bunyan  and  Cobbett, 
at  the  end  of  his  first  year  as  a  professional  journalist 
was  receiving  ;^  1,000  a  year,  and  as  at  any  time  he 
could  have  earned  great  sums  as  a  writer  to  capitalist 
papers,  it  will  be  seen  how  substantial  was  his 
sacrifice  to  the  cause  in  which  he  believed.  Further, 
he  was  always  ready  to  extend  a  helping  hand  to 
adventurous  youth,  and  the  writer  at  least  would 
be  the  most  ungrateful  of  men  if  he  did  not  acknow- 
ledge his  debt  to  the  man  who  took  him  out  of  the 
City  Jungle,  in  which  as  secretary  and  director  of 
public  companies  he  preyed  and  was  preyed  upon! 
and  made  him  acting  editor  of  Women  Folk,  that 
interesting  little  socialist  weekly  which,  after 
stupendous  efforts  (I  know  I  once  started  an 
entirely  fictitious  correspondence  upon  maternity 
by  writing  a  letter  for  appearance  in  its  columns, 
which  I  signed :  *  A  Mother  of  Five  ')  was  forced 
from  twenty  up  to  some  thirty  thousand  odd  weekly, 
but  which  had  to  be  shut  down  after  a  year's  run 
owing  to  the  heavy  losses. 

To  save  it,  we  even  called  in  the  circulation 
specialist  of  a  famous  *  million  '  daily,  who,  how- 
ever, finally  declared  it  to  be  beyond  the  power  of 
any  specialist  on  earth  to  make  the  British  working- 
class  buy  its  own  papers. 

Women  Folk  is  an  interesting  example  of  the 
foes,  not  only  those  without  but  within,  with 
which  the  socialist  and  labour  editor  has  to  contend. 
Originally  called  the  Woman  Worker,  with  a  very 
small  circulation,  and  edited  by  a  well-known 
woman   leader  of  the   I.L.P.,    Women  Folk,  upon 

141 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

its  passing  into  the  hands  of  the  Clarion  people, 
was  steadily  boycotted  by  the  I.L.P.  branches, 
and  I  can  recall  the  embittered  remarks  of  the  lady 
who  had  originally  edited  the  paper.  One  cannot 
altogether  blame  the  I.L.P.  It  had  its  own  organ 
to  push,  but  apart  from  this,  there  was  that  secret 
internecine  warfare  and  jealousy  between  the 
different  section  leaders  which  has  killed  so  many 
promising  ventures  in  the  socialist  movement, 
and  to  which  we  fell  victim. 

The  matter  is  only  alluded  to  here  because  there 
had  always  been  a  strange  and  persistent  doubt  of 
the  Clarion  movement  on  the  part  of  the  I.L.P., 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Robert  Blatchford  had 
helped  to  found  the  Independent  Labour  Party,  and, 
with  it,  the  Labour  Party.  The  whole  story  of 
the  bitter  divisions  of  the  Labour  movement,  even 
from  the  earliest  years,  was  shown  in  the  '  Coming- 
of-Age  *  number  of  the  Clarion  in  19 12,  which 
number  was  really  its  swan  song.  Robert  Blatch- 
ford then  wrote:  *  I  believe  the  leaders  of  the 
Labour  Party  have  committed  a  terrible  blunder 
and  have  done  the  cause  of  Socialism  more  harm 
in  the  last  few  years  than  the  Liberals  and  Tories 
could  have  done  in  a  century.' 

Justice  may  have  had  a  weekly  circulation  of 
twenty  thousand,  and  the  Labour  Leader  one  of 
fifty  to  sixty  thousand.  But  the  fact  remains  that 
all  the  socialist  weeklies  in  Great  Britain  probably 
never  had  a  combined  circulation  of  a  quarter  of  a 
million,  and  this  in  a  country  with  45  millions  of 
people. 

The  first  Labour  daily  was  the  Daily  Citizen^ 
142 


•  Press  and  Propaganda 

in  which  I,  like  thousands  of  others  who  saw  in  it 
a  potential  rival  to  the  great  capitalist  dailies,  was 
a  shareholder  and  for  which  I  acted  for  a  time  as 
foreign  correspondent.  The  advent  of  the  Citizen 
was  hailed  with  acclamation  by  all  sections  of 
Labour,  which  from  that  moment  quite  consistently- 
failed  to  take  it. 

Mr  Frank  Dilnot,  former  editor  of  The  Globe, 
came  from  the  Daily  Mail  to  edit  the  paper,  and 
despite  heroic  efforts  by  him  and  by  his  staff,  the 
paper  never  at  any  time  achieved  a  circulation  of 
more  than  250,000.  *  Appeals  '  of  all  kinds  were 
issued  to  the  trades  unions,  which,  in  the  way 
that  they  have,  at  one  time  raised  enormous  sub- 
sidies to  keep  going  the  paper  which  as  individuals 
they  refused  to  buy — but  ultimately  the  Daily 
Citizen  went  the  way  of  all  flesh  and  of  so  many 
other  Labour  papers  and  '  was  not.* 

It  was  followed  by  the  Daily  Herald,  formerly 
the  weekly  Herald.  The  fight  of  this  solitary  and 
raucous  eagle  of  revolt,  edited  by  the  mildest 
Bolshevik  that  ever  damned  a  capitalist,  for  existence 
is  too  well  known  to  need  recapitulation,  one  of 
the  London  dailies  stating  that  at  one  time  it  was 
losing  over  one  thousand  pounds  a  week,  although 
at  one  time,  in  1920,  under  what  the  Herald  VfovXd 
call  *  the  splendid  spur  of  the  Strike,*  Demos 
discovered  a  temporary  affection  for  the  paper 
which  so  loyally  backed  him,  paying  his  '  tuppences  * 
to  the  tune  of  over  three  hundred  thousand  a  day 
— only,  when  the  strike  was  past  and  the  froth  had 
fallen  away,  to  fall  away  himself.  One  of  its  former 
editors  told  me  the  story  of  that  fight,  a  fight  which 

143 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

is  still  continuing,  and  it  is  the  record  of  a  gamble 
with  fate  from  day  to  day,  of  peculiar  self-sacrifice 
upon  the  part  of  editor  and  staff,  and,  let  it  be  said, 
in  its  earlier  years,  of  differences  bitter  and  pro- 
longed, according  to  the  statement  made  to  me  by 
an  ex-editor.  Many  days  it  was  a  toss-up  whether 
the  paper  would  appear  the  next  morning,  and  I 
think  it  is  an  open  secret  that  without  generous 
and  continuous  subsidies  at  certain  stages  of  its 
existence,  the  Daily  Herald  would  have  joined  the 
great  majority  of  Socialist  and  Labour  papers. 
At  any  rate  its  views  are  anathema  to  the  parlia- 
mentary leaders,  by  whose  side  its  editor  once 
uneasily  sat,  who  curse  it  in  private,  what  time  the 
Labour  branches  push  it  in  public. 

The  significance  of  all  this  has  been  overlooked 
not  only  inside  but  outside  the  labour  movement. 
When  all  is  said  and  done,  the  real  test  of  a  man's 
sincerity,  of  his  devotion,  and  of  his  conviction,  is 
the  pocket  test.  The  man  who  will  not  put  his 
hand  in  his  pocket  for  a  penny  or  twopence  a  day 
to  support  the  paper  which  is  championing  his 
cause,  and  because,  unlike  the  ordinary  trade  union 
contribution,  it  shows  no  immediate  ^uid  pro  quo, 
is  not  likely  to  stand  the  test  of  greater  stresses. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  British  worker,  with  rare 
exceptions,  will  not  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket  for 
the  penny  or  '  tuppence  *  necessary  for  his  daily 
paper.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  average  member  of  the 
Labour  Party  prefers  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  to 
buy  the  papers  which  are  directly  or  secretly 
opposed  to  the  party  of  which  he  is  a  member 
than  to  buy  his  own  paper. 
144 


'  Press  and  Propaganda 

Further  than  that,  even  some  of  the  Labour 
papers  have  to  resort  to  all  kinds  of  ignoble  shifts 
to  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door.  Their  columns 
bristle  with  pitiful  appeals  to  the  hearts  and  pockets 
of  their  readers.  The  hat  is  always  being  sent 
round. 

And  now  we  find  one  prominent  labour  paper, 
edited  and  partly,  I  believe,  controlled  by  a  deeply 
religious  and  entirely  genuine  man,  reduced  to  the 
straits  of  giving  racing  '  selections  '  upon  its  posters. 
In  doing  so  it  is  admitting,  however  unconsciously, 
the  fact  that  the  ordinary  trades  unionist  is  more 
interested  in  betting  and  sport  than  in  Labour. 
Nor  have  I  the  slightest  doubt  that,  other  things 
being  equal,  the  average  organised  worker  would 
follow  any  paper,  however  anti-labour,  which  gave 
him  the  winner  of  the  Derby  or  the  Oaks  in  pre- 
ference to  a  Labour  paper  written  by  archangels 
and  edited  by  seraphim  which  was  weak  on  the 
side  of  *  tips.' 

We  have  at  any  rate  seen  the  argument  used  by 
a  Labour  man  as  an  excellent  reason  for  the  working 
man  to  support  a  certain  Labour  paper,  *  that  it 
had  a  knack  of  picking  the  winner.'  No  wonder 
the  Labour  Leader  has  recently  written :  *  So  long 
as  Trade  Union  members  attend  cricket  and 
football  matches  in  thousands  and  are  content  to 
attend  Union  meetings  in  dozens,  almost  any 
leader,  no  matter  how  bad,  is  too  good.'  When 
the  thousands  of  working  men  who  went  to  see 
'  Spion  Kop  '  win  the  1920  Derby  saw  facing  them 
at  Tattenham  Corner  the  blatant  announcement 
by  a  certain   Labour  organ   that   *  Tweedledum  * 

145 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

always  spotted  the  winners,  one  can  understand 
the  ribald  jeer  of  an  obviously  blue-blooded  sports- 
man, who,  catching  sight  of  it,  exclaimed  with 
satisfaction :  *  That's  the  stuff  to  give  'em  1  * 
Unfortunately  it  is  the  stuff. 

At  one  time  it  was  the  boast  of  the  labour  move- 
ment that  its  papers  told  *  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,'  and  that  they 
*  always  came  into  court  with  clean  hands.'  How 
far  can  that  be  said  to-day .'' 

Quite  apart  from  examples  like  the  notorious 
case  of  a  certain  labour  paper  which,  some  years 
ago,  knowing  a  certain  strike  to  be  a  dead  failure, 
still  permitted  its  first  edition  to  go  out  splashed 
with  the  news  of  a  triumphant  opening,  is  it  not 
a  fact  that  it  has  more  and  more  become  the  habit 
of  the  labour  papers,  like  some  of  the  papers  of 
their  opponents,  to  suppress  unpleasant  facts  or, 
in  order  to  gain  temporary  advantage,  to  use  that 
subtler  and  more  dangerous  form  of  deception 
known  to  the  lawyers  as  suppressio  veri,  or  the 
half-truth  ?  From  that  to  the  suggestio  falsi  is  but 
a  step.  The  labour  papers  no  longer  all  '  come 
into  court  with  clean  hands.' 

The  reason  of  the  failure  of  Labour  papers, 
apart  from  the  human  factor  mentioned,  is  to  be 
found  in  certain  financial  considerations.  In  the 
first  place,  such  papers  are  largely  boycotted  by  the 
advertiser,  partly  from  political  feeling  and  partly 
because  the  subscribers  to  such  papers  are  not 
regarded  as  having  a  high  potential  purchasing 
power.  Papers  live  by  their  advertisements,  rather 
than  by  their  subscriptions,  although  advertisements 
146 


Press  and  Propaganda 

largely  depend  upon  circulation.  So  it  is  that  by 
reason  of  their  politics  and  their  small  circulations, 
the  Labour  papers  suffer. 

Another  reason  lies  in  the  unattractive  *  make- 
up *  of  the  average  labour  organ,  whether  daily  or 
weekly,  and  this  in  its  turn  largely  springs  from 
the  fact  that  professional  journalists,  of  whom,  in 
London  at  least,  perhaps  a  majority  are  labour  and 
socialist  sympathisers,  are  ignored  by  the  average 
labour  editor,  who  is  usually  notoriously  ignorant 
of  the  technique  of  journalism.  Papers  like  the 
Labour  Leader  have,  in  later  times,  made  an  attempt 
to  secure  something  like  an  attractive  make-up, 
but  as  a  rule  the  appearance  of  the  labour  paper, 
daily  or  otherwise,  is  appalling.  The  comparative 
success  of  the  Clarion  was  due  to  the  fact  that  it 
had  professionals  behind  it,  but  the  Labour  move- 
ment as  a  whole  has  yet  to  learn  that  as  much 
technical  knowledge  is  involved  in  the  getting  out 
of  a  daily  or  weekly  as  in  the  building  of  a  house 
or  the  playing  of  the  fiddle.  One  could  instance 
a  string  of  labour  and  socialist  papers  which  have 
been  edited  by  men  who  could  not  earn  a  pound 
a  week  in  *  free-lance  '  Fleet  Street.  Here,  as  in 
so  many  other  things,  it  is  Labour's  fatal  senti- 
mentalism  and  lack  of  grip  upon  essentials  which 
keeps  such  men  in  their  jobs,  as  it  has  kept  the 
incapable  trade  union  leader  in  his. 

Something  else  that  largely  stultifies  the  Labour 
press  propaganda  is  the  divided  counsels  which  so 
often  show  themselves  not  only  in  its  different 
organs  but  even  in  parallel  columns  of  the  same 
paper.     Thus,  we  have  seen  over  a  long  period 

147 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

the  columns  of  a  certain  prominent  labour  weekly 
with  parallel  columns  giving  both  veiled  approval 
and  whole-hearted  damnation  to  Bolshevism.  *  If 
the  trumpets  give  an  uncertain  sound  .  .  .* 

It  was  in  the  same  paper  that  five  of  the  eight 
pages  of  a  certain  issue  contained  angry  recrimina- 
tions between  different  sections  of  the  Labour 
movement  upon  policy,  not  an  uncommon  feature! 

The  press  offers  Labour  its  finest  platform,  and 
Labour  makes  little  use  of  it.  Mr  Ben  H.  Shaw, 
the  Scottish  Secretary  of  the  Labour  Party,  has 
written :  *  Every  public  newspaper  should  be 
compulsorily  conscripted  into  service.  .  .  .*  and  the 
Labour  Party  Press  Department,  aided  by  their 
Research  Department,  has  made  some  attempt  at  this 
— but  so  far  with  comparatively  small  result,  even  if 
with  much  effort.  We  have  even  seen  a  London 
Capitalist  daily,  during  one  of  the  trade  disputes, 
offer  a  substantial  space  each  day  for  the  putting  of 
Labour's  case,  and  have  seen  the  miserable  response. 
Yet  even  so  small  a  body  as  the  London  Clarion 
Scouts  at  one  time  ran  a  '  Press  Circle  '  under  the 
guidance  of  a  London  editor  and  another  professional 
journalist,  which  secured  each  week  the  insertion 
of  numerous  letters  and  articles  putting  the  case 
for  Labour  and  Socialism. 

To  assert,  as  is  so  often  done,  that  letters  and 
articles  putting  the  labour  side  are  rigorously 
barred  from  the  capitalist  press  is  simply  not  true. 
What  is  true  is  that  contributions,  lifeless  and 
dogmatic,  as  are  the  vast  mass  of  Labour 
contributions,  as  those  of  us  know  who  have  been 
behind  the  scenes  of  London  dailies,  are  barred 
148 


Press  and  Propaganda 

and  rightly  so.  The  capitalist  press  will  not  go 
out  of  its  way  to  put  the  case  of  labour  and  will 
fight  that  case  where  possible,  but  it  will  not,  on 
the  other  hand,  refuse  really  interesting  contributions 
whether  they  are  for  or  against  labour. 

Some  day,  when  the  Labour  Party  has  left  its 
present  stage  and  occupied  that  newer  stage  which 
is  gradually  being  prepared  for  its  reception,  it  is 
not  without  the  scheme  of  things  entire,  as  the 
writer  ventured  to  prophesy  so  long  ago  as  19 14, 
that  we  shall  yet  see  the  Daily  Mail  the  organ  of 
Conservative  Democracy,  and,  however  far-fetched 
such  prognostication  may  seem  to  men  who  never 
see  much  farther  than  their  own  noses.  Lord 
NorthclifFe  himself  the  first  Labour  Premier. 

Labour  would  then  at  least  have  the  strange 
experience  of  being  led  by  an  idealist,  whether  one 
agrees  with  his  ideals  or  not — and  the  writer,  at 
least,  would  scarcely  find  himself  in  agreement 
with  many  of  them — a  man  who  would  literally 
yield  his  last  halfpenny  and  his  last  ounce  of  effort 
for  the  sake  of  what  he  conceives  to  be  those  ideals. 
For  Labour  to  be  led  in  our  times  by  a  whole- 
souled  captain  would  be  perhaps  a  novel  and 
revivifying  experience,  and,  in  addition,  it  would 
have  the  advantage  of  learning  the  art  of  propaganda 
from  the  world's  greatest  Propagandist,  as  the  war 
proved  .  .  .  though  whether  that  propaganda  would 
lead  into  Democracy's  New  Jerusalem  is  another 
matter  entirely. 

The  artistic  standard  of  the  average  labour 
paper  is  still  very  low.  Efforts  have  frequently 
been  made  by  enthusiastic  young  socialist  artists 

L.  L  149 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

to  induce  a  certain  labour  paper  to  set  aside  even 
a  single  column  each  week  for  book  reviews,  etc., 
but  without  result.  The  Daily  Herald  in  this 
stands  out  as  an  exception,  having  at  regular 
intervals  an  excellent  column  or  two  of  book 
reviews.  But  its  heavy  indifference  to  art  in  any 
form  is  still  unfortunately  a  characteristic  of  the 
movement  which  has  produced  some  of  the  greatest 
writers  and  artists,  such  as  Bernard  Shaw,  H.  G. 
Wells,  William  Morris,  Walter  Crane,  and  many 
others. 

One  of  the  world's  greatest  living  cartoonists  to-day 
is  possibly  Will  Dyson,  the  Australian,  whose  black 
and  white  has  a  power  denied  to  almost  any  other 
artist  of  his  type.  The  relegation  of  his  cartoons 
by  a  certain  labour  paper  to  the  strait  jacket  of 
column  or  two-column  widths  whilst  giving  full 
prominence  to  the  work  of  other  artists  of  the 
'  popular  *  type,  excellent  in  its  own  way,  is  typical  of 
the  manner  in  which  the  labour  movement  treats  its 
artists  not  only  of  the  pen  and  brush,  but  its 
musicians  and  others. 

The  movement  that  is  without  music  is  without 
inspiration. 

Here  again  the  Labour  movement  is  strangely 
lacking.  The  finest  propaganda  in  the  world  is 
the  propaganda  by  music,  as  indeed  the  finest 
propagandist  is  always  the  artist.  Repeated 
attempts  have  been  made  to  get  together  Labour 
bands,  but  without  success;  the  dreadful  bands 
which  used  to  head  our  unemployed  and  other 
demonstrations,  with  their  dirty,  unpolished  instru- 
ments and  uncertain  ideas  both  as  to  tempo  and 
150 


Press  and  Propaganda 

harmony  making  a  music  that  might  have  been 
that    of    the    damned — as    they    certainly    were. 

*  Choirs  *  of  a  sort  we  had  many,  although  I  re- 
member Bernard  Shaw  putting  his  foot  down  by 
refusing  to  speak  at   one  of  our   demonstrations 

*  if  your  musicians  first  make  my  audience 
mad.' 

Of  course  one  must  except  some  of  the  Welsh 
and  Yorkshire  choirs  of  the  Clarion  type,  but  these 
were  very  rare  birds  indeed.  As  a  whole,  our 
movement  from  the  standpoint  of  art  was  of  a  dull 
gray,  without  music  and  without  the  inspiration 
which  music  brings. 

I  know  that  listening  to  the  singing  of  *  The 
Red  Flag '  at  an  Albert  Hall  or  Queen's  Hall 
demonstration  I  have  sometimes  had  the  very 
foundations  of  my  faith  shaken.  We  sang  it  like 
a  dirge,  and  knowing  its  revolutionary  author, 
Jim  Connell,  whose  red  tie  still  splashes  the  grays 
of  Fleet  Street,  I  am  convinced  that  when  he 
composed  this  Britain's  anthem  of  revolt,  of  which 
he  once  wrote  in  the  columns  of  the  Clarion  that 
he  was  more  proud  of  having  composed  it  than 
anything  its  Editor,  who  hated  the  song,  had  ever 
written!  he  never  postulated  such  rendering. 
Morris's  *  England  Arise!  '  which  we  reserved 
for  our  larger  demonstrations,  we  sang  as  if  we 
were  doing  our  best  to  put  England  to  sleep,  or  at 
least  that  portion  in  front  of  us,  and  it  must  be 
said  we  often  succeeded.  (Incidentally,  '  The 
Internationale,*  the  anthem  of  International 
Socialism,  is  itself  a  ghastly  lilt.) 

Let  us  admit  it.    The  artist  to  the  British  labour 

151 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

movement  in  the  mass,  although  not  to  the  Conti- 
nental  movements,   is  if  not  a   *  rare  *  at  least  a 

*  queer  '  bird.    It  may  be,  as  one  of  the  most  highly 
gifted  of  the  labour  leaders  recently  wrote  to  me,  that 

*  much  of  this  is  due  to  the  low  intellectual  standard* 
of  portions  of  the  movement,  but  the  writer  at 
least  believes  it  to  be  due  to  something  deeper, 
more  inimical.  It  is  due  to  the  lack  of  inspiration 
of  the  modern  movement  and  its  big  battalions. 
It  is  due  to  that  self-satisfaction  and,  as  a  Labour 
M.P.  confessed  to  me  one  day  at  the  House  of. 
Commons,  *  to  that  smug  consciousness  of  virtue  * 
which  has  come  to  distinguish  the  more  *  precious  * 
Labour  and  Socialist  circles.  But  whatever  it  is, 
it  accentuates  the  chasm  which  separates  the 
modern  movement  from  the  movement  of  the 
pioneers,  so  many  of  them  artists. 

The  most  vital  accusation  that  can  be  levelled 
against  either  man  or  movement  is  that  he  or  it  is 
insensible  to  the  artist  and  his  message.  The 
response,  conscious  or  unconscious,  to  art  is  the 
touchstone  of  all  advance,  from  the  humblest  to 
the  highest,  for  the  artist  is  the  interpreter  of  the 
spirit  behind. 

The  mass  of  the  labour  leaders  as  the  mass  of 
their  followers  to-day,  as  is  demonstrated  by  their 
press  and  propaganda,  have  as  little  conception  of 
the  significance  of  the  artist  as  has  the  dweller  in 
a  London  slum  of  the  significance  of  the  Song  of 
Solomon.  What  the  average  labour  leader  as  the 
average  rank  and  filer  wants  is  the  *  safe  '  man — 
the  moderate  man,  the  man  he  can  *  understand,* 
that  is,  the  man  who  doesn't  make  him  think.  The 
152 


Press  and  Propaganda 

movement  to-day  wants  men  who  can  talk  plati- 
tudes, evolutionary  or  revolutionary,  from  the 
platform,  not  men  who  paint  pictures  or  who 
dream  dreams.  They  don't  want  to  be  made 
*  uncomfortable,'  which  incidentally  is  one  of  the 
first  concerns  of  the  artist,  nor  do  they  want  the 
artist  propagandist,  whether  painter,  writer,  or 
speaker,  who  drags  them  from  the  hog-trough  of 
votes  and  resolutions,  in  which  they  wallow,  to 
show  them  something  of  the  vision  of  life. 

If,  in  the  mystery  of  the  ways  divine,  England 
ever  passes  under  the  heavy  control  of  a  Labour 
bureaucracy  which  despises  art  and  the  artist,  or, 
what  is  worse,  is  heavily  indifferent,  then  God 
help  England  1 


153 


XIV 


THE    FOOLS      PARADISE 


Taking  a  bird's  eye  view  of  what  has  gone  before, 
and  admitting,  generally,  the  substantial  accuracy 
of  its  representation  of  the  Labour  movement 
to-day,  we  are  faced  with  the  fact  that  Labour  is 
living  in  a  fools'  paradise. 

Nor  can  one  exempt  any  section  of  the  move- 
ment, socialist  or  labour,  from  the  accusation. 

We  are  faced  with  the  fact  of  *  the  Brain  of 
Labour,'  that  is,  the  Independent  Labour  Party, 
tied  to  a  rotting  body  which  it  despises  at  heart 
and  by  which  it  is  despised,  dragged  at  the  heels 
of  political  wire-pulling  in  the  mud  of  politics, 
finally  wasting  itself  in  futility,  hoping  all  the  time 
that  some  miracle  is  going  to  be  performed  by 
which  the  Labour  movement  will  become  a 
sort  of  glorified  I.L.P.  and  a  very  new  heaven  be 
developed  upon  a  very  old  earth. 

We  see  the  I.L.P.  for  all  its  idealism  and  splendid 
accomplishment,  in  its  particular  fools'  paradise, 
as  portrayed  in  the  columns  of  the  Labour  Leader^ 
a  portrayal  sometimes  to  move  the  onlooker  to 
laughter  and  tears.  Week  after  week,  for  more 
than  a  decade,  we  have  seen  the  columns  of  this 
paper  full  of  the  most  pious  aspirations  for  the 
better  behaviour  and  becoming  of  the  Labour  leaders 
and  of  the  Labour  Party.  We  have  seen  the  I.L.P., 
154 


•  The  Fools^  Paradise 

hoping  against  hope  that  some  day  these  leaders 
would  show  some  ordinary  inspiration  and  become 
*  good  boys,*  praising  them  for  the  most  ordinary 
actions,  and  bearing,  it  must  be  admitted,  the  hell 
of  their  good  intentions  with  Christian  fortitude. 
If  the  Party  in  parliament,  which  it  is  sometimes 
hinted  prefers  the  smoking  room  to  the  House 
itself  and  the  glamour  of  great  demonstrations  to 
the  spade  work  of  voting,  turns  up  fifty  strong 
upon  some  bill  of  paramount  importance  to  Labour, 
the  Leader  goes  into  modified  hysterics  of  admira- 
tion. When,  as  so  frequently  happens,  a  mere 
handful  of  labour  men  turn  up  to  vote  upon  some 
labour  question,  they  are  reproved  as  '  naughty 
boys  '  who  really  some  day  must  learn  to  do  better. 
Sometimes  even,  under  excessive  exacerbation, 
the  I.L.P.  puts  them  in  the  corner  of  its  disapproval, 
at  which  the  *  naughty  boys  '  put  their  tongues 
out  .  .  .  and  go  on  precisely  as  before. 

The  I.L.P.,  for  all  its  intelligence  and  the  in- 
spiration that  is  not  entirely  dead,  is  drugged,  or 
rather  drugs  itself  by  words  and  phrases  exactly 
as  the  last  newcomer  to  the  Labour  movement  is 
drugged,  and  as  we  all  have  been  drugged.  When 
it  speaks  of  the  '  magnificent  spirit '  or  the  *  powerful 
speech  '  of  so  and  so  or  so  and  so;  when  it  uses 
the  time-worn  phrases  of  *  liberty  '  and  *  brother- 
hood *  and  above  all  that  word  so  damnably  mis- 
used in  our  days — *  democracy,'  it  is  simply 
anaesthetising  itself  with  the  words  and  phrases 
which  have  always  anaesthetised  those  who  live 
in  fools'  paradises — especially  those  who  live  in 
the  paradise  of  modern  democracy. 

155 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

When  Mr  Arthur  Henderson  sings  '  The  Red 
Flag  '  at  a  Labour  Party  Conference,  it  records 
the  fact  with  secret  relish,  because,  in  some  dim 
way,  it  may  mean  that  Mr  Henderson,  in  a  fit  of 
democratic  delirium,  may  to-morrow  morning,  or 
at  most  the  day  after,  run  out  into  the  streets,  a  red 
flag  in  his  hand,  *  mit  noddings  on,'  eating  ravenously 
of  the  locusts  and  wild  honey  of  the  inspired  pioneer. 
When  Mr  Blank,  one  of  the  *  labour  shellbacks,' 
who  has  for  many  years  distinguished  himself  by 
amiable  mediocrity  and  a  contempt  for  I.L.P 
socialism,  in  the  House  of  Commons  makes  a 
statesmanlike  pronouncement,  with  an  unwonted 
dash  of  ginger  in  it,  in  other  words,  fails  most  un- 
usually to  make  an  ass  of  himself,  the  I.L.P.  believes 
that  at  last  the  erring  brother  has  *  seen  the  light,' 
only  to  find  the  next  day  that  the  light  he  has  seen 
has  been  *  the  red  light,*  and  that  tortoise-like  he 
has  withdrawn  his  hard  and  horny  head  back  into 
the  impenetrable  armour  of  his  *  labour  '  shell. 

When  the  LL.P.  M.P.'s  in  the  Parliamentary 
Labour  Party  come  down  to  the  LL.P.  conferences 
to  complain  of  the  lack  of  inspiration  of  their 
colleagues,  against  whom  they  sometimes  hvurl 
*  unstatesmanlike  '  denunciations  and  whom  they 
criticise  mercilessly ...  in  the  conference,  the 
LL.P.  is  profoundly  moved — *  really,  something 
must  be  done  '  .  .  .  and  then  passes  on  to  the  next 
resolution. 

Some  day — some  day  in  the  dim  and  distant 
future,  the  LL.P.  visualises  the  fools'  paradise  of 
a  parliament  in  which  Mr  George  Lansbury,  who 
thinks  he  thinks  he  is  a  Bolshevik;  Mr  Arthur 
156 


•  The  Fools*  Paradise 

Henderson,  the  benevolent  radical,  who  thinks  he 
has  *  got  religion,*  the  religion  of  Socialism;  Mr 
G.  H.  Roberts,  M.P.,  who  has  '  fallen  away  from 
grace ;  *  Mr  Philip  Snowden,  the  surgeon  of  the 
socialist  movement;  Mr  Ramsay  MacDonald, 
who,  despite  his  intellectual  equipment,  is  as  far 
removed  from  Mr  Snowden  in  temperament, 
sympathies,  and  even  goal,  as  are  Lenin  and 
Trotzky  from  their  Russian  muzhiks ;  the  Reverend 
Conrad  Noel,  Sinn  Feiner  and  revolutionary  high 
churchman;  the  Reverend  J.  H.  Campbell,  his 
antithesis,  who  once  saw  '  the  socialist  light,*  but 
is  now  absorbed  in  the  bosom  of  holy  church;  Mr 
*  Jack  *  Jones,  who  fears  neither  God  nor  devil ; 
and  Heaven  alone  knows  what  other  flotsam  and 
jetsam  thrown  up  by  *  the  movement  * — will  all 
sit  together  in  brotherly  harmony.  That  they 
leave  out  Mr  H.  M.  Hyndman,  the  leaders  of  the 
Communists,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
is  only  due  to  the  fact  that  even  the  capacious 
bosom  of  the  I.L.P.  has  its  limits  of  absorption. 

Then  the  Communists,  who,  officially  excluded 
from  the  Labour  Party  as  a  body,  still,  like  the 
parasite  of  *  Yellow  Jack,'  remain  inside  it  dormant 
but  waiting  their  chance  to  pestilently  consume 
it — they  also  live  in  their  own  fools*  paradise. 

They  foresee  the  day,  and  even  believe  that 
comrade  Lenin  himself  still  believes  in  its  advent, 
although  comrade  Lenin  has  long  since  given  up 
the  belief,  when  the  Red  Flag  will  wave  triumphant 
over  the  Tower  of  London,  and  the  Tower  itself 
be  turned  into  a  Communist  dungeon  for  those 
socialists  who  do  not  see  eye  to  eye  with  those  of 

157 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

the  true  faith.  They  foresee  the  day,  not  when 
the  lion  will  lie  down  with  the  lamb,  but  when  the 
Henderson  and  Clynes  and  Thomas  lambs  have 
been  eaten  up  comfortably  by  their  brother-lions 
of  the  Communist  Party,  and  when  the  last  M.P. 
will  have  been  hurled  into  the  dirty  bosom  of 
Father  Thames  as  it  flows  under  the  walls  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  which  will  then  be  a  Com- 
munist Cathedral,  whilst  the  Abbey  over  the  way 
will  have  been  converted  into  a  dancing  saloon, 
and  St  Paul's  into  a  meeting-place  for  dishevelled 
democracy. 

They  foresee  the  day,  *  not  far  distant  as  time 
flies,'  as  one  of  them  recently  expressed  it,  when 
the  British  Trades  Unionist,  Europe's  first  pacifist, 
to-day  hating  violence  as  Satan  hates  the  water  of 
holiness,  will  have  been  transformed  into  a  deuce 
of  a  fellow,  with  a  tendency  to  barricades  and 
bombs,  and  of  a  *  clean  cut  class  consciousness  ' 
in  comparison  with  which  even  Karl  Marx  would 
be  as  a  straw  diamond  to  the  genuine  article. 

In  their  fools'  paradise  they  in  imagination  have 
covered  England  with  Soviets,  not  *  Working  men's 
and  Soldiers'  Councils,'  for  there  will  be  no 
soldiers — perhaps  no  '  working  men  ' — the  British 
working  man,  of  course,  always  having  shown  a 
startling  tendency  to  '  conscientious  objection,' 
especially  during  the  Great  War,  when  those 
Welsh  miners,  now  the  fire-eating  direct  actionists 
of  British  Labour,  lay  all  night  in  the  streets  of 
Cardiff  to  enroll  against  their  dearly  beloved 
brethren  of  Germany!  In  other  words,  England 
will  be  covered  with  groups  of  '  workers  *  who, 
158 


'  The  Fools'  "Paradise 

like  their   prototypes   in   Russia,   will   debate  the 

*  pros  and  cons  '  of  each  day's  work  before  they 
do  it,  and  will  finish  in  their  own  fools*  paradise — 
the  paradise  of  the  anarchist,  where  the  individual 
is  supreme  and  much  better  than  any  of  his  fellows, 
as  indeed  is  the  way  of  all  madhouses. 

But  by  that  time,  as  of  course  every  good  Com- 
munist knows,  the  world  will  be  Bolshevist. 
'  Fraternal    greetings '    will    have    been    sent    by 

*  wireless '  from  Paris  to  New  York  and  from 
Berlin  to  London,  with  Tokio,  Pekin,  and  Calcutta 
thrown  in  as  make-weights — because,  as  every 
good  Communist  also  knows,  although  Lenin 
doesn't,  the  bolshevik  propaganda  is  *  running 
like  wild-fire  *  through  the  dusky  millions  of  India, 
China,  and  Japan.  In  other  words,  they  are  hoping 
that  by  that  time  the  world  will  have  been  trans- 
mogrified into  a  lunatic  asylum  of  four  dimensions. 

And  then,  our  third  group  of  British  Labour — the 
placid,  gelatinous  mass  of  the  Trade  Unionists — 
what  is  the  fools'  paradise  in  which  they  are 
living  } 

That  at  least  is  plain  for  all  to  see.  Democracy 
with  a  capital  *  D,'  headed  by  the  Labour  leaders, 
is  going  to  march  on  from  strength  to  strength.  It 
is  all  so  simple! 

Democracy,  organised  into  its  Unions,  to-day  at 
one  another's  throats,  the  leaders  of  which  politely 
but  firmly  refuse  to  get  out  of  one  another's  way,  is 
going  to  gather  votes,  and  then  more  votes,  and  then 
still  more.  Democracy  is  going  a  vote  gathering.  It 
is  going  to  place  the  future  not  only  of  England  but 
of  the  world  upon  the  holding  up  of  hands.     Damn 

159 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

brains!  Damn  intelligence!  Damn  thinking! 
And,  above  all,  damn,  thrice,  trebly  damn  minorities. 

The  Great  Majority,  with  the  dead  weight  of 
its  votes,  is  going  to  roll  out  all  opposition.  If  an 
individual  gets  in  its  way,  go  over  him.  If  a  party 
gets  in  its  way,  go  over  the  party.  If  the  artist  or 
the  thinker  or  the  man  who  still  has  some  belief 
in  individual  freedom  gets  in  its  way — why,  go 
over  him!     It  is  all  so  simple. 

Quantity  is  the  thing.     Not  quality. 

*  The  divine  right  of  the  Majority  *  is  to  replace 
*  the  divine  right  of  Kings.' 

The  *  democrat '  is  to  replace  the  *  autocrat.* 
The  great  thing,  the  thing  that  matters  is  that  he 
will  call  his  autocracy,  *  democracy.*  The  label's 
the  thing. 

And  so  this  great  indifferent  army  of  the  third 
group,  the  indifferent  millions  who  form  the  body 
if  not  the  backbone  of  Labour,  is  to  march  from 
victory  to  victory — simply  by  the  power  of  the 
vote.  Not  by  thinking — although  the  leaders 
will  still  continue  to  talk  about  *  thinking;  *  not 
by  education,  although  the  word  is  and  will  be 
always  in  their  mouths;  not  by  that  spiritual 
intuition  which  comes  from  self-sacrifice  and  self- 
control,  although  the  blind,  leaders  of  the  blind,  will, 
like  second  Pied  Pipers  in  the  death-dance  of 
democracy,  play  their  children  to  the  end  inevitable 
to  the  sound  of  a  Carmagnole  that  will  be  a  psalm; 
but,  just  by  the  vote. 

In  some  unimagined  way,  there  is  to  be  more  and 
still  more  money  for  less  and  still  less  work.  '  Ca* 
canny '  is  to  be  driven  to  its  logical  objective — the 
i6o 


The  Fools'  Paradise 

objective  of  doing  no  work  at  all — but  still  wages 
are  to  be  kept  up.  Men  are  to  be  taught  that 
*  responsibility  '  is  but  a  word,  but  that  *  privilege  * 
is  everything — and  under  this  teaching  of  *  privilege 
without  responsibility  '  they  are  to  develop  character 
and  happiness. 

There  will  be  elections.  And  then  more  elections, 
in  this  paradise  of  fools.  There  will  be  the  passing 
of  resolutions  and  giant  demonstrations.  There 
will  be  a  waving  of  flags  and  much  speech-making. 
And  there  will  always  be  voting. 

And  at  last,  out  of  all  this,  the  Labour  State  is  to 
evolve  not  only  for  the  third  group  but  for  their 
friends  the  I.L.P'ers  and  the  Communists.  But 
what  that  *  State  *  is  to  be  none  of  them  have  ever 
taken  the  trouble  to  consider,  and  all  that  can  be 
said  of  it  is  that  '  its  last  state  is  likely  to  be  worse 
than  its  first.' 

But  the  worst  that  one  can  wish  to  the  imaginers 
of  this  Paradise  of  Fools  is  that  one  day  it  may  be 
realised. 

In  the  world  as  it  will  then  be,  that  world  which 
will  be  a  fools'  paradise,  *  Country,'  like  nation- 
hood, will  pale  its'  ineffectual  fires  in  the  crimson 
bale  of  rising  Internationalism.  Men  will  have 
forgotten  that  they  are  Englishmen  or  Frenchmen 
or  Irishmen  or  Indians,  and  will  only  remember 
that  they  are  Internationalist. 

But  soft,  my  masters.  For  the  paradise  of  fools 
will  have  its  serpents  as  it  will  have  its  Guardian, 
the  flaming  sword  of  fact  in  his  hand,  flashing  it 
before  the  eyes  of  those  who  hate  it. 

There   will   be   the   fact  of  a  Party   hopelessly 

i6i 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

divided  within  itself  in  everything  that  makes  for 
unity.  There  will  be  the  fact  of  a  still  ignorant 
and  uneducated  Democracy.  There  will  be  the 
fact  that,  despite  all  theories,  the  individual  is  still 
the  unit  of  progress.  There  will  be  the  fact  that 
men  and  women  differ  as  much  in  their  development 
and  achievement  to-day  in  these  days  of  democratic 

*  equality  *  as  they  have  ever  done — and,  that  other 
unpleasant  fact,  that  the  more  the  world  develops, 
as  in  the  physiological  parallel  of  the  body,  the 
more  individualised  and  complex  become  its 
functions    and    organs.      There    is    the    fact    of 

*  heredity,'  which  the  Labour  movement  simply 
ignores  but  which  still  plays  a  formulative  though 
not  the  deciding  part  in  human  destiny.  And 
there  is  that  ultimate  fact,  referred  to  before,  which 
is  only  just  beginning  to  dawn  hazily  upon  the 
intelligence  of  some  of  the  thinkers  of  Labour, 
that  men  and  women  are  not  separated  so  much 
by  class,  or  by  economic  position,  as  by  differences 
of  goal  and  spiritual  objective. 

Now,  as  always,  the  men  and  women  of  imagina- 
tion will  lead  not  only  the  Labour  Party  but  the 
world.  And  it  is  these  men  and  women  who  will 
one  day  disrupt  this  disunity  that  is  called  *  labour,* 
will  tear  off  the  mask  of  its  *  democracy,'  and  will 
leave  this  sepulchre  of  dead  hopes  as  a  spirit  leaves 
a  tomb. 

That  day  is  not  yet,  but  it  is  coming. 


z63 


XV 


LABOUR    AND    WAR 


The  rising  democracy  is  to-day  being  faced  with 
certain  main  problems.  Amongst  the  problems  which 
it  will  have  to  decide  may  be  mentioned  the  attitude 
which  Labour  is  to  adopt  to  war  and  armaments; 
its  attitude  to  *  country; '  its  definite  views  on 
empire;  and,  finally,  for  it  will  have  to  face  this 
problem  now — what  is  to  be  its  position  in  regard 
to  *  the  idea  of  God.* 

If  the  debates  in  the  House  of  Commons  upon 
armaments  be  read;  or  the  speeches  of  labour 
leaders  throughout  the  country,  not  only  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war  of  19 14  but  for  many  years 
before,  be  taken,  or  the  columns  of  the  labour 
press  be  examined,  it  will  be  seen,  beyond  equivo- 
cation, how  systematically  Labour  has  side-stepped 
all  these  and  other  problems  upon  which  the  whole 
future  of  society  turns. 

Of  course  the  dilettanti,  as  the  '  intellectuals,' 
have,  in  the  obscure  pages  of  some  socialist  or 
labour  review  or  within  the  holy  of  holies  of  their 
meeting  houses,  as  in  what  are  aptly  termed  *  full 
dress  '  debates,  like  that  upon  Foreign  Policy  at 
the  1 92 1  Labour  Party  Conference,  discussed 
these  subjects — almost  invariably  although  not 
always,  vaguely;  but  the  point  which  is  here  made 
is  that  the  labour  movement,  as  a  whole,  has  never, 

163 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

either  in  parliament  or  out  of  it,  stated  definitely 
its  views  upon  armaments  and  home  and  imperial 
defence  generally,  any  more  than  it  has  decided 
its  orientation  to  religion,  or,  as  I  have  preferred 
to  call  it,  *  the  idea  of  God.'  The  result  has  been 
that,  however  clear  individual  leaders  may  be 
upon  these  points,  the  average  Trade  Unionist  is 
still  without  any  clearer  or  more  definite  view 
upon  these  questions,  and  perhaps  excepting  the 
last,  about  which  he  may  have  his  private  view, 
than  he  has  upon  the  differential  calculus.  And  all 
this  goes  for  the  world  movement  as  well  as  the 
British. 

The  vagaries  of  British  Labour  itself  upon  these 
points  is  but  the  reflex  of  that  vagueness  of  the 
International  Socialist  Congresses,  with  their 
eternal  *  majority  *  and  *  minority  *  reports  upon 
war  and  armaments  as  upon  *  country.' 

'  Religion,'  of  course,  was  always  relegated  to 
the  dustheap  as  being  nobody's  business  but  that 
of  the  individual,  if  he  were  fool  enough  to  make 
it  so. 

To  indicate  how  hopelessly  divided  are  the 
Labour  and  Socialist  parties  of  the  world  upon  war 
and  armaments,  it  is  only  necessary  to  take  a  bird's 
eye  view  of  the  attitude  of  these  parties  throughout 
Europe  and  America  during  the  Great  War. 

The  French  Socialists  just  before  the  outbreak 
of  war,  said  if  France  were  attacked  it  would  be 
impossible  for  the  French  Socialist  Deputies  to 
vote  against  the  War  Credits.  On  August  6th, 
19 14,  they  voted  the  War  Credits. 

The  German  Socialists,  already  on  August  4th, 
164 


Labour  and  War 

1 9 14,  whilst  affirming  that  war  had  been  declared 
against  their  will,  felt  bound  to  vote  for  the  War 
Credits,  only  14  voting  against. 

The  Belgian  Socialists,  with  Belgium  invaded, 
very  naturally  voted  their  country's  War  Credits. 

In  Great  Britain  the  movement  was  divided,  but 
the  great  majority  voted  for  participation  in  the 
war.  This  led  to  splits  and  differences  in  various 
sections.  Throughout  the  British  Dominions, 
especially  in  South  Africa,  where  the  Labour  Party 
was  split,  the  same  strident  differences  were  shown, 
whilst  in  Australia  the  Labour  Party  supported 
the  war  and  the  Independent  Socialist  bodies 
opposed  it. 

In  the  United  States,  in  191 7,  the  Socialist 
bodies,  generally  speaking,  opposed  participation 
in  the  war,  whilst  the  Trade  Unions  supported  it. 

In  Italy,  the  official  Socialist  Party  voted  against 
war,  whilst  another  group  of  Socialists  were  as 
strongly  for  it,  demanding  the  wresting  from 
Austria  of  all  provinces  where  Italian  was  spoken. 

The  Socialists  of  Russia  showed  an  extraordinarily 
complicated  series  of  views  and  differences,  some 
being  for  and  some  against  war,  whilst  the  Balkans 
were  chaotic  in  their  views. 

The  Socialist  Parties  of  Greece,  Roumania,  and 
Poland  stood  for  everything  from  strict  neutrality 
to  violent  participation. 

In  Portugal  alone  were  the  Socialists  unanimous, 
supporting  their  Government. 

The  Socialist  Party  of  Austria  became  so  in- 
volved that  they  could  not  make  their  position 
clear,  although  later  they  voted  against  the  War 
L.  M  165 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Credits.  The  Bohemian  Socialists  were  also  against 
voting  for  the  War  Credits,  whilst  the  Hungarian 
Socialists  were  point  blank  opposed  to  war  in  any 
form. 

To  sum  up,  upon  the  most  important  problem 
with  which  humanity  is  faced  to-day,  the  Socialist 
and  Labour  Parties  of  the  world  showed  them- 
selves without  policy — cleft  as  no  capitalist  parties 
have  ever  been  cleft. 

What  the  British  Labour  Party,  like  all  those 
other  world  parties,  has  done  in  congresses  galore 
as  in  the  House  of  Commons  is  to  express  itself 
as  distinctly  and  amiably  against  all  war — which, 
incidentally,  is  exactly  the  position  of  any  Liberal 
or  Conservative  of  them  all.  It  has  passed  resolu- 
tions— what  resolutions  has  it  not  passed! — declar- 
ing that  war  is  wicked  ;  that  the  expenditure  on 
armaments  to-day  is  shameful;  that  people  ought 
to  love  one  another  and  presumably  would  love 
one  another  if  it  were  not  for  wicked  statesmen 
who  sit  up  o'  nights  to  make  this  love  impossible. 

But  to  declare  definitely  that  it  is  in  favour  of 
or  directly  opposed  to  conscription  of  every  means 
of  defence  at  the  British  Empire's  disposal  for  the 
protection  and  safe-guarding  of  an  Empire  from 
which  at  least  it  does  not  dissociate  itself;  that  it 
advocates  the  whole-hearted  support  or  the  dis- 
bandment  of  the  British  army;  that  military 
training,  whether  of  Boy  Scout  or  of  adult,  is 
inspiring  or  abhorrent;  and  that  it  stands  for 
immediate  disarmament  throughout  the  British 
Empire,  or  for  arming  that  Empire  to  the  teeth — 
none  of  this  has  it  done. 
i66 


Labour  and  War 

The  policy  of  the  Imperialist  who,  believing  in 
the  British  Empire,  is  determined  to,  if  necessary, 
spend  the  last  man  and  the  last  shilling  in  the  defence 
of  that  empire,  is  understandable.  The  policy  of 
the  pacifist,  opposed  to  physical  force  in  any  form 
and  to  the  taking  of  human  life,  who  says: 
*  Disarm  and  chance  what  comes !  '  is  also  under- 
standable. They  are  both,  each  from  its  own  side, 
watertight  arguments.  But  the  *  policy  '  of  the 
Labour  movement,  afraid  to  advocate  disarmament 
and  afraid  to  advocate  the  strongest  army  and 
navy  possible  in  the  defence  of  an  Empire  in 
which  it  vaguely  pretends  to  believe — that  is  a 
policy  without  logic  and  without  force,  one  only 
to  be  despised  by  all  whole-hearted  men  whether 
imperialist  or  pacifist. 

The  report  upon  the  general  policy  of  the  Labour 
Party,  adopted  in  a  series  of  resolutions  at  the 
Conference  held  in  June,  191 8,  is  typical  of  the 
phrase-making  and  pious  aspiration  into  which 
democracy  has  fallen.  The  general  policy  upon 
Imperialism,  as  set  out  in  the  Labour  Year  Booky 
is  stated  in  the  following  words : — 

*  Upon  the  broader  problems  of  political  recon- 
struction, the  Labour  Party  stands  for  a  repudiation 
of  the  Imperialism  which  seeks  to  dominate  other 
races  and  countries,  and  looks  forward  to  an  ever- 
increasing  intercourse,  a  constantly  developing 
exchange  of  commodities,  a  steadily  growing 
mutual  understanding,  and  a  continually  expanding 
friendly  co-operation  among  all  the  peoples  of  the 
world.  Not  only  does  it  demand  Home  Rule  for 
Ireland  immediately.     It  presses  also  for  separate 

167 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

legislative  assemblies  for  Scotland,  Wales,  and 
even  England.*  .  .  . 

From  this  it  goes  on  to  the  trifle  of  the  establish- 
ment of  '  a  universal  League  or  Society  of  Nations 
...  to  settle  their  disputes  with  one  another  without 
resort  to  war,'  and  '  looks  ultimately  to  the  establish- 
ment of  universal  Free  Trade  as  one  of  the  ultimate 
safeguards  of  the  world  peace.* 

Those  phrases  might  have  been  taken  word  for 
word  from  almost  any  Chairman's  address  at  any 
Trades  Union  Congress  of  the  last  ten  years. 
They  are  the  phrases  and  pious  aspirations  which 
have  become  stereotyped  into  the  Labour  conscious- 
ness until  they  are  repeated  with  as  little  thought 
of  their  real  meaning  or  of  the  possibility  of  their 
practical  realisation  as  are  the  prayers  which  pour 
from  the  Thibetan  prayer- wheel.  They  are  phrases 
which  have  that  quality  of  *  sounding  brass  and 
tinkling  cymbal  '  of  which  St.  Paul  speaks. 

What  the  Labour  Party  does  not  say  is  whether 
it  is  in  favour  of  a  strong  and  big  Empire  or  whether 
it  is  against  the  principle  of  Empire.  When  it 
sends  its  representatives  to  India  or  the  colonies, 
these  representatives  lose  themselves  also  in 
phrase-making  without  any  declaration  of  ultimate 
principles  one  way  or  the  other.  It  is  that  fatal 
lack  of  policy,  of  concentration  upon  principle, 
which  runs  through  modern  Democracy,  not  only 
in  Great  Britain,  but  in  all  countries,  and  which 
causes  its  enthusiasm,  its  energy,  and  its  efforts 
to  peter  out  into  the  sands  of  compromise. 

Not  that  the  writer  contends  that  compromise 
is  not  sometimes  necessary,  but  there  are  certain 
168 


Labour  and  War 

basic  principles  upon  which  neither  party  nor 
individual  may  compromise  without  losing  identity 
and  direction. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  indication  as  to  how 
such  epoch-making  changes,  desirable  or  un- 
desirable— and  here  the  writer  is  entirely  uncon- 
cerned with  the  desirability  or  otherwise  of  any 
policy  mentioned — are  to  be  brought  about,  and  the 
party  policy  ignores  sublimely  the  root  fact  that 
*  Demos  doesn't  care  a  damn  '  about  *  political  re- 
construction,' but  is  still,  because  he  is  uneducated 
by  his  leaders,  more  interested  in  horse-racing  or 
football  than  he  is  interested  in  the  Empire  of  which 
he  is  supposed  to  be  a  part,  and  of  which,  frankly, 
he  knows  nothing  and  cares  as  little. 

The  Labour  leaders,  British  or  continental, 
like  many  children,  want  to  eat  their  cake  and 
have  it.  They  make  no  declaration  of  policy  in 
a  definite  sense  because  having  always  one  eye 
upon  principle  and  the  other  upon  the  voter,  they 
have  ceased  to  have  principles.  And  principles 
and  votes  have  little  in  common. 

Some  of  the  other  parties  may  be  no  better, 
but  we  are  not  concerned  with  them  in  these 
pages. 

Even  so  clear-headed  a  writer  and  Labour 
champion  as  Sir  Leo  Chiozza  Money,  recently 
writing  upon  the  Labour  attitude  to  expenditure 
upon  armaments,  etc.,  said:  *  It  is  greatly  to  the 
credit  of  the  Labour  Party  that  in  all  such  matters 
it  has  taken  the  true  view.  Labour  is  sternly 
opposed  to  real  waste.  It  sets  its  face  against 
spending   vainly  on   armaments,   and   the   use   of 

169 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

armaments,  whether  in  Ireland  or  Russia  or  else- 
where.'    The  italics  are  my  own. 

What  is  *  real '  waste,  and  what '  unreal  ?  '  What 
is  *  vain  *  expenditure  and  what  '  worth-while  * 
expenditure  } 

The  passage  is  quoted,  for  it  is  so  typical  of 
Labour  vagueness  in  such  matters. 

Take  any  speech  you  like  out  of  the  pages  of 
Hansard,  or  go  to  one  of  the  hundred  and  one 
anti-war  demonstrations  of  the  Labour  Party,  and 
you  will  find  the  above  passage  paralleled  by  the 
vague  statement  of  the  speakers.  The  Labour 
Party  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other  things,  refuse 
to  face  the  facts,  because  facing  the  facts  means 
losing  the  votes. 

The  fact  is,  and  the  leaders  know  it,  that  Demos 
in  the  mass  doesn't  know  anything  about  empire 
— nor  is  he  particularly  concerned  for  *  country,* 
save  at  high-pressure  times  of  national  stress, 
like  that  of  the  War,  when  the  unconscious  lessons 
of  the  centuries  and  the  fact  that  nationhood  is 
something  vital,  not  accidental,  as  is  the  implied 
teaching  of  the  Red  International,  forces  the  un- 
conscious above  the  threshold  of  the  conscious, 
where  its  lessons  make  themselves  felt. 

When  a  brigade  of  Boy  Scouts,  with  drums 
beating  and  colours  flying,  marches  past  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Labour  Party — what  is  the  attitude 
of  the  gentlemen  inside?  Do  they  hold  up  their 
hands  in  pious  horror  at  such  juvenile  depravity, 
or  do  they  go  all  out  and,  swinging  the  Union 
Jack  out  of  the  windows,  their  eyes  in  fine  frenzy, 
rolling,  say:  *  Splendid!  That's  the  stuff  to  give 
170 


Labour  and  War 

'em!  These  are  our  potential  soldiers  for  the 
defence  of  empire.  The  soldier  has  to  be  caught 
and  trained  young.     Good  luck  to  them!  ' 

As  a  matter  of  fact  they  do  neither.  Messrs 
Henderson  and  Thomas  probably  stick  their  hands 
in  their  pockets  and  turn  away.  Mr  Ramsay 
MacDonald  looks  on  with  sardonic  eye.  And  Mr 
John  Hodges,  his  hands  engulfed  in  his  capacious 
cross-pockets,  passes  on  to  the  next  *  resolution.* 

When  the  Great  War  broke  out,  we  found  the 
Labour  Party  divided  not  between  two  but  twenty- 
two  minds.  After  passing  those  contradictory 
resolutions  in  the  early  days  to  which  reference 
has  already  been  made,  on  the  7th  of  August, 
when  the  Party,  with  its  usual  superb  inactivity, 
decided  to  make  no  pronouncement  upon  the 
Vote  of  Credit,  Mr  MacDonald  resigned  the 
chairmanship  and  Mr  Arthur  Henderson  took 
his  place. 

The  Independent  Labour  Party  came  out  with 
a  masterly  ineptitude,   which  ended: — 

*  The  war  conflagration  envelops  Europe;  up 
to  the  last  moment  we  laboured  to  prevent  the 
blaze.  The  nation  must  now  watch  for  the  first 
opportunity  for  effective  intervention.'  And  then, 
skipping  over  the  trifle  of  the  war  itself,  it  went 
on:  *  As  for  the  future,  we  must  begin  to  prepare 
our  minds  for  the  difficult  and  dangerous  complica- 
tions that  will  arise  at  the  conclusion  of  the  war,* 
falling  from  that  paragraph  into  a  violently  pious 
aspiration  for  the  resistance  by  the  workers  of 
fresh  wars,  saying  that  *  throughout  Europe  the 
workers  must  press  for  frank  and  honest  diplomatic 

171 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

policies,  controlled  by  themselves,  for  the  sup- 
pression of  militarism  and  the  establishment  of 
the  United  States  of  Europe  '  .  .  .  and  so  on.    Why 

*  the  worker,'  if  he  got  to  power,  would  in  diplomacy 
be  *  frank  and  honest  *  and  why  it  is  always  assumed 
that  Demos  is  but  a  sort  of  fallen  angel.  Labour 
and  Lenin  alone  know.  So  far,  Bolshevist  diplo- 
macy and  practice  at  least  have  not  justified  any  of 
these  assumptions. 

But  this  characteristic  counsel  of  perfection, 
at  least  ended  upon  a  note  with  nothing  enigmatic 
in  it:  *  Out  of  the  darkness  and  the  depths,  we 
hail  our  working-class  comrades  of  every  land. 
Across  the  roar  of  guns,  we  send  sympathy  and 
greeting  to  the  German  Socialists.  .  .  .  They  are 
no  enemies  of  ours  but  faithful  friends.  .  .  .' 

It  was  of  these  *  faithful  friends  '  that  Bebel,  a 
man  of  rare  honesty,  said  long  years  before  the 
war,  that  if  it  came  to  a  fight  every  German  Social 
Democrat  would  shoulder  his  rifle  in  defence  of 
Fatherland,  which  indeed  he  did.  And  it  was 
these  *  faithful  friends,'  with  a  few  honourable 
exceptions  like  Georg  Ledebour,  Marie  Luxem- 
bourg, and  Karl  Liebknecht,  who  justified  the 
German  occupation  of  Belgium,  as  being  a  case  of 

*  military  necessity.' 

As  a  counterblast,  came  the  manifesto  of  the 
Parliamentary  Committee  of  the  Trades  Union 
Congress,  which  was  an  appeal  to  the  Trades 
Unionists  of  Great  Britain  sufficiently  bellicose 
for  any  fire-eater  on  the  Liberal  or  Tory  benches. 
But,  here  again,  with  that  fatal  note  of  bargaining, 
of  doubt,  the  appeal  to  the  young  men  of  the 
172 


Labour  and  War 

working-class  to  roll  up  was  made  upon  the  lines 
that  if  they  did  not  do  so  conscription  would 
come! 

In  all  its  maze  of  resolutions,  how  rare  is  it  to 
find  the  Labour  politicals  in  the  later  years  taking 
their  stand  upon  principle  as  opposed  to  expedi- 
ency! 

Then,  to  show  how  deeply  was  Labour  divided 
upon  the  question  of  armaments,  came  the  various 
minority  revolts  inside  the  Labour  Party,  when 
accusations  were  hurled  backwards  and  forwards 
across  the  floors  of  excited  conferences,  whilst 
the  final  touch  was  given  by  the  coming  of  the 
conscientious  objector,  who,  despite  the  general 
opinion  to  the  contrary,  and  the  anathemas  bestowed 
upon  him  by  some  of  his  own  comrades,  was  often 
a  very  genuine  person  indeed  who  would  have 
found  it  much  easier  to  go  into  khaki  than  to  stand 
the  moral  obliquy  which  showered  upon  him  from 
all  directions.  The  LL.P.  itself  was  split  into  two 
distinct  and  antagonistic  sections  upon  this  very 
question  of  war  and  armaments — one  section 
standing  for  the  direct  backing  of  England's 
intervention,  and  the  other  being  against  such 
intervention. 

But  quite  apart  from  the  question  of  losing  votes, 
the  Labour  Party  makes  no  definite  pronounce- 
ment for  or  against  national  defence,  because  the 
men  who  profess  to  lead  it  are  blissfully  ignorant 
as  to  the  *  psychological '  as  apart  from  the  economic 
origin  of  wars,  consistently  underrate  the  force 
and  meaning  of  patriotism,  and  themselves,  with 
some     exceptions,     lack     decided    opinion     upon 

173 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

*  country.*  A  very  simple  consideration  will 
determine  the  facts. 

Of  the  seventy  odd  members  of  the  Labour  Party 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  how  many  stand  out 
to-day  as  having  conscious,  definite  and  impassioned 
belief  in  nationality  and  nationhood,  not  only  under 
the  stimulus  of  war,  when  men  are  driven  out  of 
themselves,  but  in  the  intervals  of  peace  ?  How 
many  of  these  gentlemen  realise  even  faintly  that 
nationality  is  but  '  the  larger  individuality,'  and 
that  the  graving  tool  of  evolution  in  our  days  is, 
just,  *  the  nation  ? '  One  will  venture  to  say  that 
not  a  third,  possibly  not  a  sixth,  could  be  brought 
into  such  category. 

These  well-meaning  gentlemen  persistently 
regard  wars  as  being  solely  the  product  of  a  few 
machiavellian  imaginations  driven  by  the  lust  for 
power  and  empire,  as  coming  directly  from  the 
evil  phantasy  of  the  modern  statesman,  who, 
heaven  knows,  has  plenty  of  it  in  his  portfolio, 
and  springing  full-fledged  from  the  brain  of 
diplomacy  as  Athene  sprang  full-fledged  and 
armed  from  the  head  of  Jupiter.  They  persist  in 
the  assumption  that  the  masses  who  vote  them 
into  ofiice  are  the  victims  of  the  machinations  of 
this  handful  of  statesmen,  statesmen  whom  at  one 
and  the  same  time  they  endow  with  the  qualities 
of  brain-softening  and  of  all-powerful  gods.  And 
so  long  as  they  persist  in  their  ignorant  assumptions 
and  their  half-truths,  so  long  will  they  plunge  into 
contradictory  war  resolutions,  so  long  will  their 
International  peace  congresses  be  rendered 
nugatory,  and  so  long  will  they  awake  from  their 
174 


Labour  and  War 

successive  trances  as  each  war  treads  upon  the  heel 
of  the  last. 

They  don't  realise  and  apparently  don't  care 
that  statesmen  are  made  by  the  very  democracy 
to  which  they  pay  lip  service,  that  armies  consist 
mainly  of  working  men,  beings  of  flesh  and  blood 
and  brain,  and  not  only  of  the  blood-distended 
monstrous  thoughts  of  ministers  of  war,  and  that 
the  moment  the  proletariats  of  the  world  decide 
that  there  shall  be  no  more  war — in  that  moment 
war  will  cease.  They  still  keep  up  this  ignominious 
play-acting  of  deluded  democracy  and  deluding 
despot,  this  farce  of  spider  and  fly.  And  if  one 
knows  them,  they  will  still  keep  it  up. 

But  when  the  drums  once  more  begin  to  beat 
in  Europe,  and  the  guns  begin  to  thunder,  the 
British  Labour  leaders  at  least,  and  whatever  the 
Continental  Labour  leaders  may  do,  despite  all 
their  pretences  of  international  brotherhood, 
despite  their  ostrich-like  policy  of  refusing  to  face 
the  facts  of  war,  and  even  because  they  have  so 
refused  and  in  the  refusing  have  given  no  lead  to 
the  workers — will  once  more  discover  that  the 
masses  of  those  workers  at  the  tap  of  the  drum  will 
follow  the  flag  as  they  have  followed  it  before,  will 
forget  their  parrot-lessons  of  an  internationalism 
the  idealist  spirit  of  which  they  have  never  under- 
stood, and  will  once  more  tread  the  awful  path  to 
*  death  or  glory.' 

They  will  discover  that  nationality  is  still 
stronger  than  a  bastard  internationalism  which, 
originally  rooted  in  idealism,  has  grown  through 
words  and  phrases  .  .  .  and  they  will  learn,   if  it 

175 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

be  possible  for  them  to  learn  anything,  that  wars 
are  not  only  questions  of  pounds,  shillings  and  pence, 
but  also  questions  of  race,  of  ideal,  of  aspiration, 
with,  behind  them,  the  dark  purposes  of  evolution 
itself. 

The  Pied  Pipers  of  the  world  play  and  the 
children  follow  the  Red  Road  of  war.  But  if  the 
children  follow,  it  is  not  only  because  of  the  Pied 
Pipers  of  militarism  but  because  of  the  Pied  Pipers 
of  pacifism. 


176 


XVI 

NATIONALISM    AND    INTERNATIONALISM 

Labour  has  no  policy  on  'War.*  Labour  has  no 
policy  on  '  Country.*  It  has  no  policy  upon 
'  Empire.* 

In  other  words,  it  is  without  policy  upon  the  three 
most  vital  problems  in  the  world  to-day. 

It  is  without  such  policy  because  it  has  never 
learnt  to  think  clearly — perhaps  because  it  has  not 
felt  deeply — ^upon  the  meaning  of  nationalism  and 
internationalism.  One  could  forgive  it  for  its 
lack  of  science.  One  cannot  forgive  it  for  its  lack 
of  intuition. 

To  probe  the  reason  for  the  inextricable  tangle 
of  thought  into  which  it  has  come,  one  has  to  get 
at  the  origin  or  origins  of  the  International  idea. 

In  all  stages  of  the  world's  history,  both  before 
Buddha  and  after  Christ,  great  spirits  have  made 
their  appearance  upon  this  earth  actuated  by  a 
profound  pity  for  humanity  and  its  sufferings. 
Saints  and  martyrs,  heroes  and  hermits,  have 
given  life  and  effort  to  the  solution  of  the  problem 
of  the  world,  which  is  the  problem  of  suffering. 
Men  of  all  religions  and  of  no  religion  have  loved 
and  worked  and  died  at  their  task. 

The  pioneers  of  the  Internationalist  movement 
in  the  '50*3  were  men  and  women  of  this  type. 
They  were  as  much  the  legitimate  if  unconscious 

177 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

successors  of  the  Buddhas,  the  Christs,  and  the 
St  Francis  d'Assisis  as  these  latter  were  of  their 
predecessors.  They,  actuated  also  by  a  passion 
for  humanity,  believing  they  had  staggered  upon 
a  new  gospel  of  perfection,  preached  *  democracy  ' 
and  *  internationalism  '  as  the  way  out  from  the 
hell  of  human  suffering,  preached  it  out  of  a  wealth 
of  good  intent.  Their  mistake  was  that  they 
believed  that  filling  the  hungry  belly  also  meant 
filling  the  hungry  soul,  whilst  their  successors 
have  begun  to  forget  the  soul  altogether. 

With  the  natural  anxiety  of  all  Utopians  to 
make  the  Utopian  gospel  one  throughout  the 
world  in  all  ages,  many  of  them  claimed  kinship 
with  their  great  predecessors,  some  of  them,  for 
example,  claiming  Christ  as  *  the  first  Socialist,* 
and  so  on.  The  anarchists  claimed  him  as  '  an 
anarchist-communist.*  The  teachers  of  '  equality,* 
ignoring  all  that  for  their  creed  was  unpleasant 
or  inconvenient  in  his  teachings,  claimed  that  he 
also  had  taught  '  equality.'  The  Internationalist 
claimed  that  he  was  internationalist.  And  so 
it  was  that  there  grew  up  a  sort  of  Utopian  tradition 
even  amongst  the  materialist  Utopians  that 
*  equality  *  and  *  internationalism  '  was  the  goal 
towards  which  all  the  great  reformers  of  the  ages 
had  been  aiming. 

What  none  of  the  Utopian  Internationalists  saw 
was  that  not  one  of  the  great  world  teachers  with 
whom  they  claimed  kinship,  where  they  did  not 
repudiate  them  altogether!  failed  to  teach,  with 
the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of 
man,  the  principle  of  what  may  be  called  *  spiritual 
178 


Nationalism  and  Internationalism 

aristocracy/  Such  teachers  recognised  implicitly 
the  vast  chasms  which  separate  human  beings  in 
their  spiritual  development,  and  especially  the  fact 
that  human  beings  are  not  separated  by  *  class  * 
or  by  economic  interests,  of  which,  indeed,  it  is 
significant  they  scarcely  ever  spoke,  so  much  as  by 
differences  of  concept  and  goal. 

These  differences  have  been  defined  and  segre- 
gated in  the  later  stages  of  evolution  by  *  the  nations  ' 
with  their  vitally  differing  temperaments  and  ideals. 
*  The  nation  *  is  but  nature's  larger  focus  of 
temperament  and  individuality,  of  which  the 
individual  is  the  smaller,  and  can  no  more  be 
obliterated  than  the  individual  himself,  behind 
which  stands  the  impulse  and  play  of  the  elemental 
forces  of  evolution.  The  inter-national  rather  than 
International  society  of  the  future  will  show  itself, 
not  as  a  dead  level  but  as  a  mountain  range,  with 
peaks  of  extraordinarily  varied  heights  and  con- 
formation, the  whole,  however,  much  more  closely 
knit  than  is  our  society  of  to-day. 

Now,  the  gospel  of  the  Internationalist  was 
that  *  all  human  beings  are  equal,'  or,  to  put  it  in 
the  vernacular,  *  as  good  as  one  another.'  The 
assumption  behind  this  was  necessarily  that  neither 
race  nor  nation  marked  fundamental  difference 
— certainly  not  temperament  or  outlook.  Such 
elementary  considerations  as  the  chasms,  physical, 
mental,  and  spiritual,  separating  the  Australian 
aboriginal  from  the  European  thinker,  for  example, 
or  to  take  another  level,  the  Eastern  Buddhist 
from  the  Western  Christian,  never  gave  the 
Internationalists  pause,  because,  inflamed  as  they 

179 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

were  with  the  lust  to  make  all  men  equal,  hypnotised 
as  they  were  by  the  word  *  democracy,'  they  did 
what  most  people  do — they  believed  what  they 
wanted  to  believe.  It  is  only  fair,  however,  to  say 
that  this  *  equality  '  was  never  taught  in  the  sense 
that  all  men  were  exactly  the  same,  having  the 
same  gifts  and  capacities  as  is  often  vulgarly 
supposed — only  that  the  extraordinary  differ- 
ences in  spritual  quality  were  never  considered  or 
admitted. 

Ignoring  as  they  did  the  profound  psychological 
and  other  considerations  which  underlay  the 
problem  of  nationality,  they  started  half-way  up, 
and  seeing  that  wars  were  between  nations,  they 
reached  the  easy  and  to  them  obvious  conclusion, 
that  the  first  thing  to  do  was  to  obliterate 
as  far  as  possible  nationality  and  replace  it  by 
internationalism. 

It  was  only  necessary  to  go  out  into  the  world 
and  preach  the  new  gospel  of  Internationalism, 
and  all  men,  especially  working  men!  would 
forget  that  they  were  Americans,  or  Englishmen, 
or  Frenchmen,  or  Irishmen,  or  Germans,  and 
would  after  a  time  become  just  *  International.* 

Their  first  misconception  was  that  International- 
ism and  Nationalism  are  the  antitheses  of,  instead 
of  being,  as  they  are,  the  essentials  each  of  the 
other.  They  contended,  not  unplausibly,  that 
nationhood  would  lose  its  identity  and  sanctity  in 
Inter-nationhood  or  Internationalism,  and  they 
conveniently  forgot,  if  they  ever  remembered, 
that  the  family,  for  example,  as  the  individual 
himself,  lost  neither  its  identity  or  sanctity  when 
i8o 


Nationalism  and  Internationalism 

it  merged  into  the  tribe,  and,  later,  into  the  nation, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  gained  in  both  as  evolution 
did  its  work.  They  also,  incidentally,  forgot  that 
so  hard  does  nationality  die  even  in  new  surround- 
ings, that  one  of  the  problems  of  the  modern 
statesmen  in  certain  countries,  and  especially  in 
the  United  States,  is  the  problem  of  accentuated 
nationality  resulting  from  the  trek  into  the  new 
country.  *  Hyphenated  nationality,'  as  it  is  some- 
times called. 

In  fact,  these  international  pioneers  were  trying 
to  run  internationally  before  they  could  walk 
nationally. 

Men  who  have  no  love  of  country  and  no 
patriotism  are  of  no  use  in  the  International 
Building  to  come.  No  man  can  be  Internationalist 
before  he  is  Nationalist.  A  man  who  has  not 
learnt  the  cohesion  of  country  is  not  likely  to  learn 
the  greater  cohesion  of  countries.  The  man  who 
has  not  learnt  to  live  and  move  and  have  his  being 
through  the  soul  of  a  nation  is  not  going  to  do  so 
through  the  International  Soul. 

But  the  Labour  movement  in  all  countries  has 
been  assuming  that  all  these  impossibilities  are 
possible. 

If  anything  could  have  torn  the  scales  from  the 
eyes  of  Demos  and  his  leaders  and  so  enabled  them 
to  see  clearly  the  meaning  of  nationality,  although 
upon  its  darker  and  more  unconscious  sides,  it  was  the 
Great  War.  The  International  structure  collapsed 
silently  in  a  night  as  did  the  Campanile  of  Venice. 
On  August  1st,  1 9 14,  the  Labour  movements  of 
the  various  countries  were  still  exchanging  '  fraternal 

L.  N  181 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

greetings,*  were  still  talking  vaguely  of  *  inter- 
nationalism *  and  'democracy.'  On  August  31st, 
they  were  at  one  another's  throats  on  the  battle- 
fields of  the  Continent.  The  war  has  indeed 
shown  that  of  all  forces  in  the  world  to-day  the 
force  of  nationality  is  still  the  strongest,  although 
it  is  a  force  that,  like  all  the  mightier  forces, 
sometimes  takes  terrible  as  well  as  beautiful  forms. 

Not  that  nationality  and  nationhood  will  always 
display  itself  upon  the  battlefield  or  that  inter- 
nationhood  will  always  remain  a  vain  dream,  but, 
just  as  we  find  in  all  evolution  of  life  upon  the 
globe  that  advance  and  co-ordination  has  always 
led  to  more  intense  specialisation  and  differentiation 
of  the  parts  co-ordinated,  as  in  the  human  body, 
for  instance,  so  we  shall  find  that  although  it  may 
take  and  will  take  new  forms,  nationhood,  and  the 
larger  individuality  that  is  nationhood,  will  show 
itself  ever  more  highly  specialised  and  differentiate, 
as  indeed  we  shall  see  and  are  seeing  in  the  case  of 
the  individual  inside  the  nation  itself. 

But  so  far  as  International  Labour  is  concerned, 
the  point  is  whether  its  leaders  are  prepared  to 
face  the  facts. 

The  facts  they  have  to  face  are,  first,  that  as  all 
progress  is  first  made  through  individuality  and 
the  individual,  so,  for  the  sake  of  the  world,  the 
larger  individuality  of  the  nation  must  be  preserved 
at  all  costs.  Secondly,  that  the  progress  to  true 
international  understanding  can  only  be  made  by 
the  conscious  development  of  fuller  nationhood. 
Lastly,  they  have  to  face  the  law  of  evolution 
which  is  *  the  Law  of  the  Ascending  Spiral.* 
182 


Nationalism  and  Internationalism 

This  last  is  the  law  by  which  the  human  race, 
in  its  tortuous  path  upwards  along  this  spiral  seems 
always  to  come  back  over  the  same  spot,  but  at 
a  higher  level.  There  is  progress — but  it  is  progress 
in  which  the  same  principle  makes  itself  eternally 
apparent  in  different  forms. 

The  Man  of  the  Stone  Age,  for  example,  was 
the  fundamental  individualist,  that  is  to  say,  the 
anarchist,  his  hand  against  every  man,  every 
man's  hand  against  him.  In  the  course  of  the 
ages  he  yielded  to  both  a  modification  and  en- 
largement of  his  individuality  by  absorption  into 
the  family,  itself  the  direct  ancestor  of  the  nation ; 
the  family  itself  becoming  more  firmly  established 
in  the  process,  and  now  we  see  how  the  idea  of  the 
inter-nation  is  slowly  evolving.  Only,  because  the 
international  idea  of  our  times  has  sought  to 
obliterate  instead  of  to  preserve  individuality  by 
obliterating  the  idea  of  the  nation  itself,  which  is 
the  same  thing  as  obliterating  the  individuality  of 
those  composing  the  nation,  it  is  going  to  fail  and, 
in  fact,  has  already  failed,  as  the  War  has  shown. 

Further,  to  take  our  argument  another  stage, 
we  have  seen  how  side  by  side  with  the  growth  of 
a  false  internationalism  there  has  been  the  growth 
of  the  State  Collectivist  Principle.  And  now, 
both  from  this  false  international  concept  as  from 
the  tyranny  of  the  mechanical  collectivist  State,  man, 
in  his  path  along  the  spiral,  has,  especially  since 
the  war,  reacted  in  protest  to  a  stronger  individualism 
as  he  has  done  so  many  times  before  in  his  ascent 
along  the  spiral — reacted  to  the  individualism  of 
his  ancestor  of  the  Stone  Age,  but  on  an  infinitely 

183 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

higher  level.  It  is  the  same  individualist  principle 
to  which  he  has  come  back,  but  at  a  higher  point  of 
evolution. 

This  reaction  in  its  turn  will  presumably  yield 
to  the  Higher  Collectivism  and  to  a  genuine 
Internationalism,  both  founded  in  a  conscious 
individualism  as  in  a  conscious  nationality,  and 
both  animated  by  that  aristocracy  of  spirit  which 
will  replace  the  aristocracies  of  blood  and  of  money 
which  were  its  predecessors  on  the  spiral  path. 
The  principle  of  the  play  is  the  same,  it  is  only 
the  players  who  change. 

That  the  Labour  movement,  national  or  inter- 
national, in  its  present  form  will  learn  these  lessons 
and  face  these  facts  one  cannot  believe.  What 
we  are  likely  to  see  are  fatuous  and  frequent 
attempts  to  build  up  new  *  Red  Internationals,* 
which  at  present  spring  up  like  mushrooms  in  the 
night.      We   are   likely   to   see   much   holding   of 

*  international '   congresses   and   much   passing   of 

*  resolutions,*  with  a  tactful  sidestepping  of  questions 
of  *  country  *  and  *  empire  '  and  similar  unpleasant 
facts.  From  time  to  time,  it  will  seem  as  though 
International  Labour  had  reached  some  cohesion 
and  some  understanding  upon  these  points,  only, 
upon  the  tap  of  the  drum,  to  be  once  more  violently 
torn  apart. 

And  here  is  the  final  fact. 

The  British  worker  is  to-day  more  *  British  * 
and  less  internationalist  than  he  has  ever  been. 
The  German  worker  is  more  *  German  *  and  more 
anti-French.  The  French  worker  is  more  anti- 
German  and  more  '  French.*  Take  any  country 
184 


Nationalism  and  Internationalism 

in  the  Old  World  and  you  will  find  that  never 
before  in  the  history  of  the  earth  has  nationality 
become  so  accentuated  even  though,  unhappily, 
it  has  not  become  more  conscious  and  has  in  some 
cases   become  more  reactionary. 

When  Mr  H.  G.  Wells  in  his  immensely 
stimulating  Salvaging  of  Civilisation  insists  that 
the  quick  establishment  of  *  the  World  State  of  ^ 
All  Mankind  '  alone  can  prevent  civilisation  from 
perishing — he  is  asking  for  the  impossible.  When 
he  speaks  of  the  conception  of  a  World  State  to 
supersede  the  crowd  of  independent  struggling 
States  of  to-day,  he  is  speaking  of  the  absolutely 
unattainable.  When  he  demands  that  our  children 
shall  be  released  from  their  national  obsessions, 
he  is  simply  demanding  the  incomprehen- 
sible. 

These  things  are  to-day  impossible  and  un- 
attainable and  incomprehensible,  for  two  reasons 
and  two  only:  first,  nationality  is  still  the  most 
powerful  driving  force  in  the  world;  and  secondly, 
an  International  World  State  will  only  be  possible 
when  each  unit  composing  it  is  that  of  a  fully 
ccmscious  nation,  proud  of  its  nationhood,  and  fully 
realising  the  significance  of  nationality,  and  all 
this,  without  taint  of  jingoism  or  that  narrow 
patriotism  which  so  often  to-day  passes  for  the 
larger,  deeper  nationalism. 

When  Mr  Wells,  who  one  rather  suspects  has 
never  really  understood  the  ultimate  meaning  of 
nationality,  says  that  so  far  as  '  national  egotism  * 
is  concerned,  the  children  '  are  not  born  with  it,' 
he  is  falling  into  the  common  pit  of  a  common 

185 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

error  with  the  labour  leaders  to-day  who,  lacking 
vision,  have  as  little  understanding  of  the  imaginative 
genius  of  a  Wells,  as  they  have  of  the  labyrinth 
of  the  Milky  Way,  and  who,  incidentally,  in  the 
past  have  bitterly  resented  his  entirely  justified 
criticisms  of  the  Labour  movement.  Nationality 
is  not  an  accident — ^it  is  a  gift,  inherited  through 
countless  generations,  and  like  all  beautiful  things, 
capable  of  terrible  abuse. 

Mr  Wells,  gifted  dreamer  though  he  be,  like 
so  many  of  the  Utopian  Internationalists,  is  crying 
for  the  moon.  The  World  State  will  only  come 
'  when  democracy  has  been  made  safe  for  the  world  * 
and  when  Demos  has  risen  from  his  belly  to  stand 
upright  in  the  light  of  the  morning  as  befits  a  son 
of  the  gods.  To-day  he  is  selling  his  god-like 
birthright  for  a  mess  of  potage. 

The  day  when  the  Labour  leaders  of  the  world 
learn  themselves  and  teach  to  their  followers  that 
a  true  Internationalism  can  only  be  founded  upon 
a  conscious  nationalism,  when  they  teach  them  that 
nationality  is  really  of  extraordinary  import, 
having  nothing  in  common  with  the  jingo  patriotism 
with  which  it  is  so  often  confused,  that  day  will 
see  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  wars  of  natifi)ns 
if  for  nothing  else,  then,  because  respect  and  under- 
standing of  the  individuality  of  one's  own  nation 
will  mean  respect  for  and  understanding  of  the 
individuality  of  other  nations.  It  is  always  the 
ignorant  strata,  whether  above  or  below,  of  a 
nation  which  are  contemptuous  of  the  rights  and 
individuality  of  other  nations,  and  this  ignorance 
only  has  its  parallel  in  the  assumption  of  the 
i86 


Nationalism  and  Internationalism 

*  Internationalist  *  that  there  are  no  vital  differences 
between  nations. 

The  armies  of  the  world  are  chiefly  composed 
of  the  working  men  of  the  world,  who  go  to  the 
slaughter  because  they  are  unconscious,  uncon- 
scious of  themselves  as  individuals  and  unconscious 
of  the  meaning  of  nationhood.  When  they  become 
conscious,  individually  and  nationally,  that  vnW 
mean  the  end  of  war  and  the  beginning  of  a  real 
Internationalism. 


187 


XVII 


THE    IDEA    OF    GOD 


In  theory,  the  Socialist  and  Labour  movement, 
either  in  Great  Britain  or  through  the  world, 
nationally  or  internationally^  is  entirely  unconcerned 
with  '  the  idea  of  God.'  In  practice,  this  movement 
has  become  the  most  powerful  movement,  because 
it  has  become  the  most  materialistic  movement, 
against  the  idea  of  God  in  any  form. 

By  *  the  idea  of  God,'  the  writer  refers  neither 
to  belief  in  dogma  nor  to  theological  definition, 
but  simply  to  a  spiritual  as  opposed  to  a  materialist 
concept  of  life,  carrying  with  it  some  apprehension 
of  a  Will  and  Purpose  behind  the  universe. 

We  have  always  declared  it  from  our  platforms 
as  in  our  press  that  *  the  Labour  movement  has 
nothing  to  do  with  a  man's  religion.'  The  writer 
has  hundreds  of  times  made  the  assertion  in  common 
with  his  comrades  and,  at  the  time  he  made  it, 
believed  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Labour  move- 
ment has  in  our  times  as  a  whole,  and  always 
excepting  certain  sections,  gradually  resolved 
itself,  none  the  less  powerfully  in  that  it  has  done 
so  largely  unconsciously,  into  an  anti-religious  and 
anti-spiritual  movement. 

This,  like  so  many  other  similar  statements  in 
this  book,  will  be  vehemently  denied  by  all  those 
well-meaning  people  who,  themselves  often 
i88 


'  The  Idea  of  God* 

*  religious,*  can  only  see  the  things  immediately 
lying  around  them,  nor  is  the  writer  at  pains  to 
deny  that  even  seven  short  years  ago  he  would  have 
denied  it  as  strenuously  and  as  indignantly  as  any  one 
of  them,  nor  would  he  deny  to-day  that  the  assertion 
is  less  true  of  the  British  than  the  Continental 
movements.  Such  people,  being  part  of  the 
British  labour  movement,  and,  as  is  so  often  the 
case,  knowing  little  or  nothing  of  the  Continental 
movements,  and  even  when  they  have  had  an 
opportunity  of  studying  them  having  been  blinded 
by  that  curious  myopia  which  is  so  peculiar  to 
certain  types  of  British  socialists  when  mixing 
with  their  Continental  fellows  and  springing  from 
their  insularity,  will  naturally  point  to  the  fact 
that  almost  all  the  leaders  of  the  Independent 
Labour  Party,  for  example,  have  been  *  religious  * 
men  and  women  of  spiritual  outlook.  They  will 
as  naturally  point  out  that  the  British  labour  move- 
ment has  always  had  large  numbers  of  clergymen 
in  its  ranks,  and  that  even  the  Church  Socialist 
Society  was  formed  for  the  express  purpose  of  per- 
meation of  socialism  by  the  church  and  the  church 
by  socialism.  And  they  could,  if  they  cared,  state 
with  every  claim  to  accuracy  that  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  British  Trades  Unionists  are  still,  if  not 
always  church-going  or  chapel-going  folk,  more 
or  less  believers  in  '  the  idea  of  God.* 

What  they  would  not  admit,  because  they  as  yet 
scarcely  realise  it,  is  that  despite  the  above,  the 
whole  trend  of  the  labour  movement  even  in 
Britain,  as  has  been  demonstrated  in  the  preceding 
pages,  has  been  in  the  later  years  more  and  more 

189 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

away  from  spiritual  conceptions  and  towards 
materialist  conceptions.  Nor  have  they  ever 
understood,  as  the  writer  has  had  the  opportunity 
of  observing  repeatedly  when  attending  Inter- 
national and  other  congresses  abroad,  the  fact  that 
the  overwhelming  mass  of  the  continental  socialists, 
whether  one  takes  Germany,  France,  Italy,  Austro- 
Hungary,  or  the  Scandinavian  countries,  and 
whether  one  considers  the  '  direct  action  '  or  the 
*  political  *  socialist,  regard  the  Socialist  and  Labour 
movement  as  a  direct  counter  to  the  idea  of  God 
in  any  form — or,  rather,  as  almost  any  Continental 
Socialist  would  express  it,  and  as  the  Bolshevists 
have  quite  unequivocally  expressed  it — *  to  gross 
superstition.* 

The  little  Communist  maid  of  ten  who  not  so 
long  ago  stood  up  in  one  of  the  open  spaces  of 
Berlin  to  address  *  a  children's  communist  meeting  * 
to  tell  her  little  comrades  that  *  she  did  not  believe 
in  the  swindle  of  God  or  authority,*  was  but  re- 
peating faithfully  the  lessons  inculcated  for  two 
or  three  generations  by  the  adults  of  the  continental 
socialist  movements. 

To  any  one  who  has  any  pretence  to  knowledge 
of  the  attitude  of  the  continental  socialist  parties 
to  religion,  the  belief  of  the  leaders  of  the  British 
labour  movement  that  in  essentials,  and  especially 
in  this,  the  most  essential  of  all,  the  continental  and 
the  British  movements  are  at  one  would  be  laugh- 
able if  it  were  not  tragic. 

I  will  take  one  example  of  the  ignorance  which 
makes   such  a   belief  possible,   using  the  Danish 
Social  Democratic  Party  as  the  object  lesson. 
190 


•  The  Idea  of  God  * 

One  frequently  sees  in  the  columns  of  the 
British  Labour  press  *  fraternal  congratulations ' 
to  the  comrades  of  the  Danish  Socialist  Party  upon 
their  striking  advance  towards  getting  the  reins 
of  power  into  their  hands  and  their  progress 
towards  the  ideal  State.  One  has  again  and 
again  seen  British  socialists,  themselves  sometimes 
ardent  Christians,  moved  to  ebullitions  of  joy  at 
such  progress,  when  really,  did  they  know  the 
facts,  they  should  have  been  moved  to  tears.  At 
the  Copenhagen  Socialist  Congress  in  1910,  some 
of  the  British  delegates,  many  of  them  devout 
religionists,  were  redundant  in  their  admiration 
of  the  Danish  Socialists,  knowing  as  little  of  them 
or  their  real  objective  as  though  they  had  come 
from  Greenland. 

The  writer  having  been  a  member  of  the  Danish 
Party,  and,  speaking  the  language,  having  lectured 
to  Socialists  in  various  parts  of  Denmark  and 
seen  something  of  the  working  of  the  Party, 
ventures  to  indicate  the  chasm  separating  the 
Danish  Social  Democrat,  not  only  upon  the  spiritual 
plane,  but  upon  all  others,  from  his  British  brother. 

The  Party,  now  almost  the  most  powerful  party 
in  the  country,  consists  of  men  and  women  quite 
openly  pledged  to  fight  the  spirit  of  religion  in  any 
form.  One  may  state  without  the  slightest  fear 
of  exaggeration  that  the  only  goal  of  this  Party 
of  materialists  is  the  goal  of  four  or  five  meals  a 
day  and  the  abolition  of  the  priest,  the  church, 
and  the  whole  idea  of  any  life  beyond  that  of  the 
beasts  that  perish.  Originally  starting  with  the 
ideals  of  the  Independent  Labour  Party,  through 

191 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

pioneers  of  great  self-sacrifice  and  unflinching 
devotion,  the  movement  with  *  success  '  has  sunk 
steadily  into  the  morass  of  materialism,  until 
to-day  it  has  become  a  sepulchre  of  idealism. 
Based  dogma  for  dogma  and  phrase  for  phrase 
upon  the  Marxian  German  Socialist  Party,  its 
leaders  have  elevated  Marx  into  a  sort  of  bible,  but, 
as  one  of  these  leaders  admitted  to  the  writer:  *  In 
the  400,000  who  vote  for  the  party,  there  are 
probably  not  20,000  who  are  convinced  Socialists 
or  who  know  anything  about  Marx.  They  vote 
Socialist  because  they  know  that  Socialism  means 
more  money  for  less  work.' 

It  is  literally  true  to  say  that  to-day  the  Danish 
Social  Democratic  Party  is  regarded  with  loathing 
and  contempt  by  the  men  and  women  of  all  parties 
who  still  retain  a  spiritual  idea  of  life  and  humanity, 
and  it  is  a  loathing  shared  by  the  Danish  syndicalists 
for  their  Socialist  *  comrades,'  but  only  for  political 
reasons. 

This  being  so,  the  spectacle  of  Messrs  Ramsay 
MacDonald  and  Arthur  Henderson  addressing 
the  crowd  of  100,000  who  recently  gathered  in 
Copenhagen  to  celebrate  the  jubilee  of  a  Party 
which  is  as  divorced  from  the  ideals  of  its  pioneers 
as  are  some  of  the  churches  of  to-day  from  the 
teachings  of  their  Master,  and  rejoicing  fatuously, 
because  ignorantly,  in  *  its  promise  for  the  future,* 
is  one  to  amaze  both  gods  and  devils — the  former 
to  tears  and  the  latter  to  laughter.  To  imagine 
that  in  any  single  thing,  except  bureaucracy,  a 
Methodist  lay  preacher  like  Mr  Henderson,  a 
deeply  religious  man,  has  anything  in  common 
192 


*  The  Idea  of  God 

with  two  point  blank  materialists  like  Messrs 
Borbjerg  and  Stauning,  the  two  Danish  leaders, 
who  hate  the  whole  idea  of  God,  is  an  International 
joke. 

I  remember  a  friend  being  asked  in  Denmark  by 
some  Danish  socialists,  who  had  been  astounded 
at  witnessing  the  apparition  of  three  British  labour 
leaders  upon  their  knees  in  prayer  at  a  little  place 
called  Lyngby,  outside  Copenhagen,  whether  such 

*  superstitions '  were  part  of  the  British  party 
dogma ! 

It  was  some  of  the  leaders  of  this  party,  who, 
incidentally,  during  the  war,  cold-shouldered  the 
British  Socialists  in  every  possible  way  and  allied 
themselves  warmly  with  the  German  Socialists, 
instead  of,  as  '  Internationalists,'  remaining  neutral, 
who  visited  Brussels  during  the  war  upon  German 
invitation  and  whilst  the  Germans  were  occupying 
it.     And  it  was  these  gentlemen  who,  believers  in 

*  democracy  *  and  freedom,  were  shameless  enough 
to  inform  the  people  of  Denmark  that  the  Belgians 

*  were  leading  a  merry  life  under  the  occupation 
and  were  quite  content.* 

The  case  of  Denmark  is  specifically  mentioned 
here  because  it  is  so  symptomatic  of  '  the  Great 
Illusion  '  of  Social  Democracy  throughout  the 
world — that  Socialists  and  especially  working  men 
are  bound  together  for  the  same  goal  and  have  the 
same  concepts.  But  it  has  now  passed  the  stage  of 
illusion  to  become  deliberate  and  sometimes  almost 
dishonest  illusion,  because  the  Socialist  refuses  to 
face  the  facts  and  admit  that  he  has  been  building 
the  International  Temple  upon  the  sands  of  illusion. 

193 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

That  the  British  Trade  Unionist  is  beginning 
to  realise,  however  dimly,  something  of  all  this  is 
shown  by  the  decision  of  the  General  Federation 
of  Trade  Unions  at  their  1921  Congress  to  take 
part  in  an  International  Trades  Union  Congress 
of  *  English-speaking  *  peoples  for  the  unification 
of  trade  union  policy  in  the  English-speaking 
countries.  This  decision,  it  was  stated,  was  an 
attempt  to  wrest  the  Labour  and  industrial  move- 
ment from  the  theorists  of  the  Continent — that  is, 
to  fight  the  Continental  adherents  to  the  theories  of 
Marx  and,  presumably,  to  fight  the  *  Class  War.* 

Both  in  Germany  and  in  Holland  it  has  again 
and  again  been  borne  in  upon  the  writer  how 
utterly  unbridgable  were  the  differences  of  concept 
upon  religion  between  the  Continental  and  the 
British  or  American  movements,  just  as  it  has 
been  demonstrated  in  England  how  vital  were 
these  differences  between  materialist  sections  like 
the  Communists  and  Social  Democrats  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  Independent  Labour  Party  on  the 
other. 

It  has  become  the  fashion  in  the  world  to  divorce 
politics  and  religion,  always  using  the  word  in  the 
spiritual  rather  than  the  theological  sense,  and  the 
Socialist  movement  has  not  escaped  it.  But  all 
such  artificial  separations  become  as  naught  when 
it  comes  to  the  test.  Still,  to-day,  the  ultimate, 
the  most  far-reaching  thing  that  separates  civilised 
humanity  is  the  difference  of  concept  upon  the 
idea  of  God.  The  Great  War  has  already  tried 
to  teach  labour  the  lesson  that  nationality  and 
national  conceptions  play  one  of  the  major  parts 
194 


'The  Idea  of  God' 

in  the  division  of  mankind — it  has  yet  to  learn 
that  there  is  something  even  still  deeper,  more 
inevitable  in  its  effects,  and  that  is  the  outlook  of 
human  beings  upon  the  things  that  lie  beyond  the 
material. 

One  is  not  here  speaking  of  theological  differences. 
Nor  is  one  denying  that  some  of  the  noblest  and 
finest  men  and  women  who  have  existed  have 
believed  themselves  quite  sincerely  to  be  helping 
humanity  by  fighting  *  the  idea  of  God  '  in  the 
sense  of  theological  definition,  though  such  men 
and  women,  nominally  materialist,  have  actually 
taken  the  spiritual  view  of  life  and  living,  and  have 
been  unconsciously  *  on  the  side  of  the  angels.' 
But  what  one  is  speaking  of  is  the  fundamental, 
irreconcilable  difference  between  the  materialist 
proper  with  his  goal  of  fleshly  or  purely  intellectual 
satisfactions,  and  the  anti-materialist,  between  that 
overwhelming  mass  of  the  International  Socialist 
and  Labour  movement  to-day  which  steadily  trends 
to  a  material  conception  of  existence  and  that 
minority,  a  small  and  narrowing  minority,  which 
regards  the  body  as  of  little  importance  by  the 
side  of  the  soul — even  though  it  seldom  uses  the 
word  and  is  often  scarce  conscious  of  its  meaning, 
and,  indeed,  only  urges  the  care  of  the  former  in 
order  that  it  may  be  a  more  worthy  vehicle  for  the 
latter. 

*  I  would  not  cross  the  road  to  give  you  three 
meals  a  day  and  a  bigger  hog-trough,'  I  once  heard 
a  young  Socialist  propagandist  say  to  an  East-end 
audience  in  the  early  days.  How  many  of  the 
labour  leaders  would  say  it  to-day  ? 

195 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

The  writer  was  amused  some  time  ago  to  be 
told  by  one  of  the  women  leaders  of  the  British 
Labour  Party  that  *  masses  of  brilliant  and  spiritual 
young  men  and  women  are  pouring  into  the  Party.' 
Possibly  they  are,  but  it  is  equally  assured,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  speaker  herself,  that  they  will  either 
remain  in  the  Party  at  the  cost  of  individual 
repression,  spiritual  and  otherwise,  or,  discovering 
the  difference  between  *  phrase  and  fact,'  will 
come  out  again,  as  many  indeed  are  doing. 

It  is  no  accident  that  thousands  of  idealist  young 
men  and  young  women,  tired  of  the  older  parties, 
searching  eagerly  for  a  party  of  ideals  and  earnest 
democrats,  hold  themselves  aloof  from  the  Labour 
Party  because,  as  many  of  them  have  said  to  the 
writer,  it  is  a  party  of  a  machine  without  *  soul.' 

But  whatever  may  be  the  attitude  of  the  British 
labour  movement  to-day,  it  is  beyond  cavil  that, 
excepting  such  sections  as  the  Social  Democratic 
Federation,  which  from  the  beginning  was  always 
materialist  and  anti-religious,  though  in  practice 
often  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  the  whole 
driving  force  in  the  first  days  of  the  British  Socialist 
and  Labour  movement  was  religious  in  spirit  if 
not  always  in  name. 

Our  earlier  labour  demonstrations  at  least 
replaced  the  surplice  by  the  red  tie  and  the  cross 
by  the  red  flag — but  the  spirit  behind  them  was  the 
spirit  of  religion.  We  had  and  have  our  *  Socialist 
Sunday  Schools '  throughout  the  country.  Our 
*  labour  hymns,'  as  we  called  them,  were  ethical 
pap  set  often  to  the  hymn  tunes  of  our  childhood 
with  the  acid  of  dogma  extracted,  and,  as  is 
196 


*  The  Idea  of  God  * 

everywhere  known,  even  to-day  we  always  chaunt 
the  *  Marseillaise  '  like  a  funeral  dirge — which, 
indeed,  has  always  been  the  Britisher's  concept 
of  revolution.  While  the  doleful,  British  '  For 
he's  a  jolly  good  fellow,'  droned  with  conventicle 
snuffle,  which  Labour  reserves  for  its  archangels, 
that  is,  for  its  leaders,  is  enough  to  make  them,  like 
the  other  and  lower  angels,  weep. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  they  don't.  Instead,  they 
smile  from  ear  to  ear.     But  that  is  by  the  way. 

Nobody  has  ever  been  able  to  get  the  '  Pleasant 
Sunday  Afternoon  '  spirit  out  of  the  British  Labour 
movement.     But  then,  nobody  has  ever  tried. 

An  ex-cabinet  minister  and  labour  leader,  whose 
name  is  known  throughout  Europe,  said  to  the 
writer  a  little  time  ago:  *  I  have  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  Arthur  Henderson's  concept  of  running 
the  Empire  when  Labour  comes  to  power  is  that 
of  a  Pleasant  Sunday  Afternoon  in  a  Baptist 
chapel!  '  Mr  Arthur  Henderson,  amiable,  sincere 
man  and  lay  preacher,  fills,  it  may  be  said,  the 
pulpits  of  *  Pleasant  Sunday  Afternoons '  with 
much  satisfaction  both  to  himself  and  his  congre- 
gations. 

It  is  easy  to  laugh  at  all  this  spirit  of  religion, 
the  spirit  which  has  made  the  British  labour  move- 
ment essentially  a  *  faith  '  rather  than  a  *  politic,* 
a  movement  which  in  its  beginnings  seemed  to 
form  the  natural  refuge  of  those  who  had  gone 
out  from  the  temples  of  dogmatic  religion.  A 
cheap  sneer  can  be  levelled  at  such  phenomena 
as  that  of  one  Labour  Party  Congress  which  I 
attended,  when  it  was  stated  that  more  than  half 

L.  O  197 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

the  delegates  present  were  teetotallers  and  many 
of  them  members  of  the  chapels.  Nor  is  it  difficult 
for  the  light-hearted  scoffer  to  find  in  the  British 
Labour  ranks  the  weaknesses  of  the  sectarian, 
Little  Bethel  spirit  which,  in  matters  of  religion, 
has  made  England,  Scotland  and  Wales  a  by-word 
upon  the  Continent. 

And  yet,  after  one  has  worked  in  foreign  labour 
movements  and  had  the  opportunity  of  their 
intimate  study,  one  must  confess  that,  in  its  earlier 
days  at  least,  the  British  labour  movement  had  a 
spirit  unique — a  spirit  that  at  one  time  seemed 
to  point  to  a  purging  of  the  materialist  dross  from 
Labour,  to  set  a  path  for  the  Labour  movements 
of  the  world  and  to  inform  the  bread-and-butter 
struggle  by  the  struggle  spiritual. 

Only  all  this  should  not  blind  us  to  the  ugly 
fact  that  British  labour,  like  labour  in  other  parts  of 
the  world,  is,  as  has  already  been  indicated,  drifting 
slowly  but  inevitably  to  the  materialist  slough 
from  the  idealist  road  upon  which  it  set  out. 

The  movement  to-day  is  fast  losing  the 
*  religious  '  note.     It  retains  only  the  sentimental. 

Despite  all  this,  the  leaders  of  British  labour,  or 
some  of  them,  still  cling  to  the  idea  that  socialism, 
whatever  form  it  may  take,  and  the  working  man 
because  he  is  a  working  man,  all  ultimately  lead  to 
'  the  idea  of  God,*  much  upon  the  same  principle 
presumably  as  the  Buddhist  regards  all  men  and  all 
religions,  whether  good  or  bad,  as  ending  finally 
in  the  Buddhist  Nirvana.  It  is  a  convenient  belief 
and  in  the  case  of  the  *  religious  '  labour  leader  a 
perfectly  honest  one,  unfortunately  1 
198 


'The  Idea  of  God' 

But  there  are  two  gentlemen  in  Russia,  Lenin 
and  Trotzy  by  name,  who  have  not  the  faintest 
doubt  in  the  world  that  socialism  leads  and  must 
lead  inevitably  to  the  destruction  of  '  the  idea  of 
God,*  and  so  much  is  this  the  case  that  we  have 
seen  the  Bolshevist  regime  forbidding  the  teaching 
of  the  Bible,  or,  for  that  matter,  of  any  book  tending 
to  inculcate  so  blatant  a  *  superstition '  as  the 
existence  of  any  life  except  this,  of  any  God 
except  Karl  Marx,  and  of  any  end  save  the  satis- 
faction and  development  of  brain  and  body.  It 
has  even  now  placed  its  leaden  hand,  that  of 
Commissary  of  Education  Lunatcharsky,  upon 
any  fairy  tale  which  mentions  *  fairies  or  angels,* 
replacing  it  by  perfectly  sterilised  and  proper 
bolshevist  tales  in  which  only  *  facts  '  are  given, 
and  in  which  little  lifting  feet  are  clamped  to  earth. 

So  it  is  that  we  find  that  simple  and  devout 
High  Churchman,  George  Lansbury,  editor  of 
the  Daily  Herald^  declaring  himself  Bolshevist  and 
believing  that  Mr  Lenin  and  himself  have  identically 
the  same  goal — only  that  Lenin  perhaps  does  not 
know  it!  But  there  is  one  gentleman  who  at  least 
has  no  illusions  on  the  point — and  that  is  Mr  Lenin 
himself. 

But  Lenin  is  not  alone  in  his  opposition  to  the 
religious  idea.  I  have  known  several  of  the  leaders 
of  the  German  Social  Democratic  Party,  but,  quite 
apart  from  belief  in  a  God  or  a  Conscious  Purpose 
behind  the  universe,  which,  to  Continental  Social- 
ism, with  its  often  vast  ignorance  of  history  except 
that  part  of  history  which  fits  its  theories,  is 
but  a  reversion  to  a  mediaeval  superstition  which 

199 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

man  had  sloughed  once  and  for  all  and  for  the 
first  time  in  the  nineteenth  century,  I  cannot  recall 
a  single  one  who  believed  in  a  God  or  in  anything 
beyond  the  materialist  conception  of  history  and 
of  life.  I  have  never  heard  of  a  single  French 
Socialist  leader  who  professed  such  belief  either 
in  private  or  in  public.  In  the  Norwegian,  Danish, 
and  Swedish  Socialist  parties,  I  do  not  know  a 
single  leader  of  prominence  of  either  sex  who  is 
other  than  a  tacit  or  avowed  enemy  of  religion  in 
any  form,  or  has  other  than  a  materialist  concept 
as  the  goal  of  Socialism.  In  Holland,  where  I  met 
several  of  the  labour  leaders,  I  never  met  one  who 
was  not  a  materialist  both  by  conviction  and 
practice.  Italy,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  none,  and  in 
fact  the  church  in  Italy  is  regarded,  and  not  perhaps 
unnaturally,  as  the  historic  foe  of  a  Social  Democracy 
which,  incidentally,  still  confuses  theology  with 
religion. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  countries,  almost  alone,  show 
the  labour  leader  who  is  at  the  same  time  a  believer 
in  *  the  idea  of  God.*  It  is  this  idea  in  which  lies 
perhaps  the  solitary  genius  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
labour  movement  to-day.  It  was  shown  by 
Charles  Kingsley  and  his  Christian  Socialists  in 
the  '50*s,  and  the  tradition  has  persisted,  or  at 
least  did  so  until  the  last  few  years,  when  the  per- 
sistent preaching  of  the  material  as  the  end  of 
working-class  agitation  has  at  last  done  its  work 
and  the  British  working-class,  in  common  with 
that  of  other  countries,  is  now  being  sapped  through 
and  through  in  its  older  beliefs  and  ideals. 

*He  that  sups  with  the  devil  needs  a  long  spoon — * 
200 


''The  Idea  of  God' 

especially  if  he  be  a  materialist  devil,  as  indeed  he 
usually  is.  But  no  spoon  has  ever  yet  been  made 
which  could  enable  the  leaders  of  British  labour  to 
sup  with  the  materialist  devils  of  continental  labour 
without  being  made  to  swallow  the  spoon.  And 
they  have  begun  to  swallow  it. 

And  of  course  all  sorts  of  well-intentioned  and 
themselves  excellent  men  and  women,  especially 
in  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  will  continue 
to  delude  themselves  that  religion  is  still  the  heart 
of  Labour  politics  and  parties.  In  England,  new 
recruits  to  Labour  like  the  Hon.  Arthur  Ponsonby, 
have  even  written  books  on  this  religion  in  labour 
politics,  in  which  they  protest  that  the  religious 
spirit  will,  as  one  of  them  said,  '  protect  the  Labour 
Party  from  becoming  a  mere  materialist  party, 
caring  only  for  wages  and  majorities,  and  from 
being  an  indifferent  imitation  of  the  parties  that 
preceded  it.*       Significant  protest  I 

Inside  the  ranks  of  the  Social  Democratic 
Federation  I  have  known  devout  Churchmen  of 
the  type  of  the  Rerverend  Conrad  Noel.  Within 
the  ranks  of  the  Clarion  Scouts  we  had  several 
devoted  clergymen  who  gave  of  their  best  to  the 
movement.  I  have  known  a  priest  in  charge  of 
a  large  Midland  parish,  also  a  High  Churchman, 
an  I.L.P'er  who  over  a  number  of  years  vainly 
tried  to  bring  his  socialist  comrades  to  the  altar 
which  he  had  erected  within  his  own  house — • 
without  success.  Scores  of  nonconformist  clergy- 
men have  passed  through  the  ranks  of  the  labour 
movement,  many  of  whom,  splendid  men  as  a  rule, 
I  have  also  known.    And  all  these  men,  in  common 

201 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

with  devout  laymen  often  belonging  to  no  church 
and  adherents  of  no  dogma,  all  suffered  from  the 
same  illusion,  as  old  as  the  earth  itself:  that  one 
can  gather  grapes  of  thorns  and  figs  of  thistles. 

All  these  men  suffered  from  the  illusion  that 
once  the  body  of  man  was  well-fed  and  poverty 
abolished,  then  his  soul  would  also  be  well-fed 
and  spiritual  poverty  cease  to  exist.  They  all 
believed  that  one  day,  when  socialism  came,  there 
would  be  a  great  trek  back  to  the  churches  and 
chapels,  or,  if  they  were  not  members  of  any  church 
or  believers  in  any  dogma,  that  a  spiritual  wave 
would  pass  over  the  Socialist  and  Labour  movement 
and  that  its  adherents  would  no  longer  '  live  by 
bread  alone.' 

In  order  that  all  this  might  be  made  possible, 
they  were  all  of  them  tremendously  tactful,  extra- 
ordinarily careful  never  to  speak  of  God  or  to  use 
the  word  *  religion,'  imagining,  poor  fellows,  that 
by  so  doing  their  policy  of  *  peaceful  permeation  * 
would  one  day  bear  fruit.  Yet  to-day,  after  half 
a  century  of  socialist  propaganda,  they  are  farther 
from  their  goal  than  ever. 

There  are  men  and  women  in  the  British  Socialist 
movement  to-day  who  have  deliberately  put  their 
ideals  and  their  souls  into  shackles,  and  have  as 
deliberately  shut  their  eyes,  hoping  against  hope 
for  the  conversion  of  the  working  man  to  *  the 
idea  of  God.'  But  some  of  these  men  and  women 
— not  many,  for  human  nature  hates  to  be  dis- 
illusioned— are  to-day  discovering  that  the  longest 
way  round  is  not  always  the  shortest  way  home. 
They   are   beginning   to   discover   that   there   are 

202 


'  The  Idea  of  God^ 

certain  things  in  this  world  upon  which  compromise 
is  impossible  or  if  practised  can  only  be  carried 
out  at  the  cost  of  everything  that  makes  life  some- 
thing more  than  an  intellectual  gymnasium,  and 
living  something  more  than  sensual  gratification. 

The  compromise  in  the  Labour  movement  of  all 
countries  which  has  prevented  the  men  and  women 
of  inspiration  from  telling  the  working  man  that 
he  was  something  more  than  a  body,  and  dragging 
him  from  his  hog-trough,  is  the  compromise  which 
throughout  the  world  has  helped  to  sap  the  morale 
of  the  working  man,  and,  to  put  it  bluntly,  *  to 
make  a  fool  of  him.* 

And  it  is  the  realisation  of  this  which  in  the 
movement  of  the  new  democracy  will  split  the 
Labour  movement.  The  first  great  break  was 
the  Communist  break,  when  the  materialist 
Bolsheviks  broke  away  to  frankly  declare  belief 
in  God  as  the  enemy  and  the  physical  force  which 
is  the  instrument  of  materialism  as  the  remedy. 
They  have  left  behind  them  in  the  hog-trough  a 
great  indifferent  mass  of  working  men,  but  amongst 
them  that  tiny  minority  of  thinking  men  and 
women  who,  because  they  take  the  spiritual  concept 
of  life,  will  not  be  content  to  remain  in  it. 

The  next  step  will  be  the  breaking  away  of  that 
minority,  who  will  once  more  go  out  into  the 
working  world  of  democracy  and  preach  fearlessly 
*  the  idea  of  God  '  and  the  gospel  of  anti-materialism 
— but  that  will  be  the  gospel  of  '  spiritual 
democracy,'  the  natural  enemy  of  the  '  materialist 
democracy  '  which  was  its  predecessor. 


203 


XVIII 


LABOUR    AT    THE    CROSS-ROADS 


Demos  to-day  is  standing  at  the  cross-roads  of 
destiny.  Every  man  and  every  movement  at  one 
time  or  another  of  his  or  its  life  comes  to  one  of 
those  signposts  which  stand  on  the  long  road  that 
stretches  to  the  Unknown  Goal.  i 

Before  the  working  man,  whatever  his  country, 
there  lie  to-day  three  roads,  only  one  of  which  can 
bring  him  and  the  democracy  he  represents  to 
fulfilment. 

One  of  these  roads  is  the  road  of  *  Direct 
Action,'  a  rough,  but  apparently  short,  quick 
road,  with  as  its  goal,  the  Dictatorship  of 
the  Proletariat.  The  second  is  the  road  of  the 
*  Mass- Vote,'  a  broad,  smooth,  and  easy  way, 
leading  to  the  Paradise  of  the  Majority,  which  is 
really  the  hell  of  self-satisfied  bureaucracy,  with, 
ultimately,  dictatorship  by  the  bureaucrat.  The 
third,  a  narrow,  difficult,  and  seemingly  unending 
road,  is  the  road  of  *  Self-development,'  which,  in 
the  fulness  of  time,  after  ceaseless  struggle  and 
effort,  alone  could  find  the  only  goal  worth  achieving 
— the  goal  of  a  Spiritual  Democracy. 

It  is  necessary  that  we  here  should  look  ahead 
with  a  view  to  outlining  the  possible  future  of 
Democracy,  so  far  as  it  may  be  possible  for  finite 
humanity  to  do  so.  That  such  anticipations  are 
204 


•  Labour  at  the  Cross-Roads 

not  always  false  has  been  repeatedly  shown  within 
the  last  two  generations,  when  men  of  imagination 
and  vision  like  Mr  H.  G.  Wells  have  been  able 
to  foresee  with  extraordinary  accuracy  the  evolution 
of  society,  and  that  sometimes  twenty  years  before 
the  events  themselves. 

The  writer,  whilst  making  no  claim  to  any 
prophetic  gift  beyond  that  open  to  large  numbers 
of  his  fellow  beings,  is  basing  his  forecasts  in  this 
chapter  upon  what  has  already  been  seen  in  the 
evolution  of  democracy  during  the  past  decade. 
The  war  itself  has  done  more  than  anything  else 
to  tear  away  the  veils  from  the  future  for  those  who 
care  to  look  first  behind,  then  before. 

If  Demos,  as  indeed  is  not  at  all  impossible, 
ultimately  plunge  headlong  into  the  path  of '  Direct 
Action  '  on  which  he  had  entered,  but  from  which, 
for  the  time,  he  has  seemed  to  recoil,  it  will  be  due 
to  certain  distinct  causes. 

We  have  traced  clearly  how  the  war  first  drove 
Demos  to  direct  action  and  physical  force.  The 
causes,  psychological  and  physical,  of  that  apparently 
resistless  impulse  have  been  plain  to  follow.  Now 
that  the  pendulum  has  begun  to  lose  its  first 
impetus  towards  direct  action,  we  have  been  seeing 
in  the  various  European  countries,  following  upon 
the  apparent  break-up  of  Bolshevism  in  Russia, 
and  with  the  Russian  stimulus  to  revolution  largely 
removed,  the  working  man  turn  once  more, 
although  half  doubtfully,  towards  the  beaten  track 
of  the  vote  and  constitutional  action.  (Of  course, 
it  is  always  possible  that  the  Labour  pendulum  may 
not  swing  back  either  to  political  or  to  '  direct  * 

205 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

action,  but  may  take  an  entirely  new  direction, 
now  unsuspected.  The  pendulum  of  society  in 
its  evolutionary  movement,  we  are  sometimes  apt 
to  forget,  varies  not  only  in  speed  but  in  direction. 
But  it  seems  improbable  to-day  that  the  pendulum 
of  labour  will  take  an  entirely  unsuspected  path. 
That  is  something  for  the  more  remote  future.) 

With  this  mental  reaction  there  has  in  many 
of  the  European  countries  run  a  wave  of  reaction 
through  the  employing  and  governing  classes 
which  for  one  hundred  years  has  had  no  parallel, 
and  which  has  weakly  had  its  reflex  in  the  middle 
class  beneath.  There  has  been  a  determination, 
none  the  less  determined  in  that  it  was  implicit 
rather  than  explicit,  unconscious  perhaps  rather 
than  conscious,  for  the  world's  '  strong  men,* 
seizing  their  opportunity,  once  more  to  take  the 
reins  of  evolution  from  the  hands  of  hesitant 
democracy,  there  has  been  a  resolve  to  drive  the 
chariot  of  evolution  along  old  paths,  long  forgotten 
and  untrodden,  and  with  all  this  there  has  come 
the  power  of  the  new  plutocracy,  in  which  the 
modern  plutocrat  has  replaced  his  predecessor, 
the  aristocrat,  and  so  created  the  aristocracy  of  the 
Twentieth  Century — the  aristocracy  of  money. 

Not  only  are  the  leaders  of  the  plutocracy  but 
the  leaders  of  democracy  playing  with  forces  so 
overwhelming  in  their  potentialities,  so  entirely 
incapable  of  control,  that  one  can  only  compare 
both  plutocrat  and  democrat  to-day  to  children  who, 
having  found  a  box  of  matches,  have  got  into  a 
powder  magazine. 

If  the  world's  '  strong  men  *  realise  the  forces 

206 


Labour  at  the  Cross-Roads 

with  which  they  are  playing  and  use  the  power 
which  fate  and  the  war  has  thrust  into  their  hands 
judiciously,  then  the  workers  of  the  world  will  not 
be  driven  into  the  path  of  physical  force  or  direct 
action,  and  a  terrible  collision,  in  other  words — 
universal  Civil  War  will  be  avoided.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  seems  to  be  true  of  certain  sections 
of  short-sighted  employers,  .the  present  advantage 
is  pushed  up  to  the  hilt  and  the  opportunity  used 
to  depress  wages  by  the  threat  of  unemployment 
and  to  reduce  the  worker  to  the  stage  of  helot, 
then  nothing  can  avert  the  final  explosion  in  which 
society  itself  may  disappear.  As  we  have  already 
said  before,  there  is  no  man  so  dangerous  as  the 
man  who  has  nothing  to  lose. 

It  has  to  be  remembered  that  forces  are  at  work 
day  and  night  to  drive  malignly  the  workers  into 
the  path  hellward.  Not  only  is  there  the  possible 
pressure  from  the  short-sighted  '  strong  man,' 
but  there  is  a  secret  stimulus  which  will  yet  show 
itself  once  more  although  perhaps  in  new 
forms. 

The  world  with  its  usual  shortness  of  memory 
appears  to  regard  the  Russian  Bolshevik  menace 
as  past.  With  the  reversion  to  a  sort  of  state 
capitalism  on  the  part  of  Lenin,  the  Russian 
Dictator,  the  entering  into  trade  and  other  agree- 
ments by  the  Bolshevist  government  with  outside 
capitalist  governments,  and  that  veil  of  silence 
which  seems  gradually  to  be  falling  over  the 
Russian  Experiment,  not  only  the  average  man 
but  the  statesman  is  inclined  to  believe  that  Nikolai 
Lenin  *  has  seen  the  error  of  his  ways,'  that  Russia 

207 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

herself  will  gradually  settle  down  into  a  sort  of 
pre-war  Russia  but  without  a  Czar,  and  that  we 
shall  hear  no  more  of  the  nonsense  of  a  Bolshevik 
world-propaganda. 

That  is  the  theory.     What  are  the  facts  ? 

The  first  fact  is  that  Nikolai  Lenin  is  an 
absolutely  genuine  man — fanatical  to  his  marrow 
— 2i  man  of  the  genius  of  a  Napoleon,  with  a  power 
of  organisation  and  of  *  permeation  *  that  has  pos- 
sibly never  been  matched,  for  he  is  the  Propagandist 
extraordinary.  He  has  gathered  about  him  some 
of  the  most  brilliant  and  fanatical  men  and  women 
to  be  found  in  the  socialist  movements  of  the  world, 
and  if  he  has  apparently  given  up  the  idea  of  con- 
verting the  earth  to  Bolshevism,  it  may  be  taken 
as  assured  that  he  is  only  drawing  back  to  spring 
when  the  time  is  again  ripe,  as  indeed  can  be 
discovered  by  any  one  who  takes  the  trouble  to 
visit  Russia  and  get  at  the  facts. 

The  average  man  imagines  that  the  Bolshevik 
propaganda,  as  such,  has  practically  ceased.  The 
actual  fact  is  that  this  propaganda  is  ceaseless  and 
untiring  in  every  trade  union  in  Europe  to-day, 
although  the  word  Bolshevism  is  rarely  used,  and 
this  can  be  proved  by  going  behind  the  scenes  of 
any  Union  either  in  Great  Britain  or  the  continent. 
The  Moscow  Internationalists  are  as  set,  more 
set,  to-day  than  they  have  ever  been  upon  world- 
revolution,  the  overthrow  of  the  capitalist  system, 
and  the  replacing  of  it,  not  by  Socialism,  but  by 
that  '  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat  *  which  is 
the  new  autocracy  of  our  times. 

How  could  all  this  be  otherwise  } 
2oS 


Labour  at  the  Cross-Roads 

Democracy  is  one  day  going  to  learn  that  it  is 
the  minority  that  leads  and  inspires,  not  the  majority. 
The  world  is  going  to  learn  that  it  is  the  Bolshevist 
minority  of  600,000  in  the  millions  of  Russia 
which  is  the  conscious  minority,  and  that  it  is  this 
minority  which  swings  Russia  and  which  one  day 
hopes  to  swing  the  world,  if  not  to-day,  then 
to-morrow,  if  not  to-morrow,  then  the  day  after. 
Next  day,  next  month,  or  next  year — it  is  all  one 
to  the  Bolshevist,  who,  believing  very  sincerely 
and  very  fanatically  that  any  or  every  weapon  is 
justifiable  against  what  he  calls  '  the  curse  of 
capitalism,'  with  as  little  compunction  in  the  using 
of  it  as  a  man  would  have  in  the  use  of  a  shot-gun 
against  a  mad  dog,  or  a  modern  European  power 
in  the  use  of  poison-gas  against  another  power, 
will  again  and  yet  again  seek  to  throw  the  world 
into  revolution  by  turning  Demos  on  to  the  path 
of  *  Direct  Action.' 

Something  else  that  the  world  does  not  realise 
is  that  it  is  now  no  longer  a  question  of  a 
decade,  but  possibly  of  only  a  few  years,  for  our 
modern  civilisation  either  to  continue  or  to  be 
hurled  into  the  dust  where  lie  the  civilisations  of 
Babylon  and  Persia,  Greece  and  Rome.  If,  under 
the  competitive  system,  *  credit,'  that  delicate 
razor-edge  upon  which  the  whole  capitalist  struc- 
ture is  balanced  so  dangerously,  be  not  quickly 
repaired  and  once  more  got  to  function,  we  shall 
indubitably  see,  in  the  opinion  of  the  world's 
leading  economists  of  all  shades  of  politics  and 
view,  the  whole  of  the  present  system  subside 
without  any  other  ready  to  take  its  place,  and  with 

209 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

untutored,  unready  Democracy  floundering  in  the 
mud  of  its  theories. 

Men  and  women  imagine  that  by  some  magic 
or  other,  credit  can  be  got  to  function.  But  as  a 
matter  of  fact  all  credit  rests  upon  *  production,' 
and  production  rests  upon  one  thing — the  working 
man.  If  the  working  man's  powers  of  production 
continue  steadily  and  apparently  inevitably  to 
decline — and  recent  statistics  show  that  they  have 
already  declined  in  some  trades,  as  in  all  countries, 
to  as  much  as  50  per  cent,  as  compared  with  before 
the  war — then  the  whole  credit  system  will  come 
crashing  to  the  ground,  and,  with  it,  civilisation 
itself  and  such  as  it  is. 

With  the  vicious  circle  of  unemployment  caused 
by  the  break-up  of  the  credit  system,  and  the 
break-up  of  that  system  causing  unemployment, 
and  with  men  and  women  of  all  classes  uneducated 
to  that  high  standard  of  self-control  and  self- 
sacrifice  essential  to  any  scheme  of  *  production 
for  use  '  to  replace  the  present  system  of  *  pro- 
duction for  profit,'  nothing  is  more  likely  than  at 
a  later  stage,  when  the  present  excessive  instinctive 
effort  towards  the  reorganisation  of  society  has 
exhausted  itself,  that  we  shall  see  the  working  man 
hounded  on  to  direct  action  and  physical  force. 
Men  need  a  certain  degree  of  degradation  and 
despair  before  they  can  make  revolt.  Demos  is 
rapidly,  partly  through  his  own  fault,  partly  through 
that  of  others,  reaching  this  stage — and  when  he 
does  reach  it  we  shall  see  not  local  strikes,  or  even 
sectional  strikes,  but  we  shall  see  *  general  *  and 
even  international  strikes,  because  in  these  days 
210 


Labour  at  the  Cross-Roads 

of  easy  communication  these  things  are  as  infectious 
as  measles  and  as  impalpable  and  penetrating  as 
*  wireless.'  It  is  not  that  Labour  would  be  likely 
to  embark  upon  an  international  *  sympathetic ' 
strike,  carefully  planned.  It  would  drift  into  it 
as  Society  began  to  go  to  pieces. 

They  will  not  be  strikes  of  a  higher  wage.  They 
will  not  be  strikes  of  protest.  They  will  be  strikes 
of  despair. 

We  are  always  forgetting  that  the  whole 
psychology  of  Demos  has  changed  at  least  in  one 
respect  since  the  war.  Demos  to-day  is  a  much 
more  '  nervy '  fellow  than  he  was.  His  whole 
nervous  system  is  in  a  constant  state  of  irritation 
and  dissatisfaction,  and  in  any  single  country  we 
have  seen  the  phenomena  of  the  rapidity  with 
which  strike  mania  spreads. 

Despite  all  his  internal  quarrels,  all  that  weakness 
which  is  so  patent  to  the  looker  on,  the  fact  remains 
that  there  never  has  been  a  time  in  the  story  of 
modern  industry  when  the  wrong,  real  or  fancied, 
to  some  single  and  obscure  individual  workman 
and  in  any  country  is  so  likely  to  throw  a  bombshell 
into  the  wheels  of  industry  and  bring  the  whole 
machine  to  a  standstill.  And  what  is  true  of  any 
single  nation  might  under  exceptional  stress  be  true 
of  the  nations,  and  we  might  find  strike  spreading 
from  nation  to  nation,  as  indeed  we  did  find  after 
the  end  of  the  war,  until  Europe  was  reduced  to  a 
wilderness  in  which  no  escape  of  steam,  no  turn 
of  wheel,  and  no  movement  of  worker  would  be 
seen. 

We  do  not  always  remember  that  men  who  are 

211 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

long  past  the  possibility  of  physical  or  mental  power 
for  personal  rehabilitation  or  for  constructive 
effort,  as  are  large  numbers  of  European  workmen 
to-day,  have  just  in  that  moment  the  greatest 
possibility  for  destructive  effort. 

If  unemployment,  the  rising  cost  of  living,  the 
collapse  of  the  credit  system,  all  of  these  correlated, 
and  the  universal  misery  which  would  be  the  out- 
come, should  result  in  finally  driving  Demos 
headlong  into  the  path  of  direct  action,  and  such 
fateful  decision  might  come  in  the  end  out  of  some 
trifling  and  obscure  incident,  then  it  is  not  difficult 
to  see  what  would  probably  be  the  course  of  events, 
all  of  them  within  the  bounds  of  possibility  in 
these  days  when  the  war  has  unleashed  an  entirely 
new  series  of  destructive  forces  and  with  them 
an  entirely  new  '  world-conscience  *  or  rather 
consciencelessness. 

The  whole  thing  might  start  from  *  a  cloud  no 
bigger  than  a  man's  hand.*  It  might  be  a  railway- 
man in  some  English  railway  whom  the  company 
refused  to  reinstate.  It  might  be  a  miner  in  a 
Welsh  pit,  whose  very  name  would  be  forgotten 
after  the  first  few  weeks,  who  had  been  unfairly  or 
fairly  docked  a  five-shilling  piece.  But  it  might 
come  from  any  other  country  in  Europe. 

If  it  were  a  Welsh  miner,  for  example,  the 
Miner's  Federation  would  call  out  all  its  men  and 
shut  down  all  the  pits,  only  this  time  we  should 
see  the  sabotage  of  the  last  strike  practised  upon 
a  systematic  scale,  and  we  should  not  see  *  negotia- 
tions.' That  would  bring  out  the  railwaymen  and 
the  transport  workers,  the  other  partners  of  the 

2X2 


Labour  at  the  Cross-Roads 

Triple  Alliance — a  tocsin  to  prepare  for  industrial 
war  would  be  sent  out  to  the  other  workers  of  the 
country,  who  will  not  always  refuse  to  come  out 
when  their  comrades  call,  and -who  at  the  time  of 
which  we  are  speaking  may  have  the  resistless  stimuli 
of  widespread  unemployment  to  goad  them  on. 

Then  the  next  stage  would  be  reached. 

The  government  of  any  European  country  rests, 
in  the  ultimate  sense,  upon  the  soldier,  the  sailor, 
and  the  policeman.  One  of  the  very  first  attempts 
— attempts  which  even  in  the  past  have  been  made 
more  than  once,  as  we  have  seen  from  our  news- 
papers— would  be  made  by  the  strikers  to  get  hold 
of  the  army,  the  navy,  and  the  police  force.  Such 
attempts  would  result  in  failure,  because  the 
disciplined  man  has  another  kind  of  soul  than 
the  undisciplined — a  psychological  factor  always 
ignored  by  the  direct  actionist. 

A  minority  of  the  army,  the  navy  and  the  police 
might  go  over  to  the  strikers — but  the  great  mass 
would  remain  in  the  ranks  and  would  shoot  when 
told  to  do  so,  and  the  telling  would  not  be  long  in 
the  coming. 

The  authorities  in  Great  Britain,  as  the  writer 
happens  to  know,  were  secretly  much  exercised 
in  their  minds  at  the  time  of  the  Miners'  Strike  in 
1 92 1  as  to  whether  the  armed  forces  of  the  law 
would  *  do  their  duty  '  when  called  upon.  They 
might  have  made  their  minds  easy.  Not  one 
soldier  in  fifty,  not  one  sailor  of  the  Navy  in  one 
hundred,  and  not  one  policeman  in  a  thousand  of 
any  country  would  refuse  to  shoot  down  their 
fellows  when  called  upon  to  do  so. 

L.  P  213 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

The  next  stage  would  be  the  pitiful  attempts  of 
the  strikers  to  disorganise  the  services  of  the 
country,  and  the  almost  unanimous  response  of 
the  great  Middle  Class  to  defeat  that  attempt  at 
disorganisation,  backed  up  by  the  armed  forces 
of  the  Crown.  The  Middle  Class  has  always 
been  what  the  striker  calls  the  '  blacklegging  class,' 
and  it  will  be  so  in  all  future  strikes.  Those  who, 
like  the  writer,  have  taken  part  in  committee  work 
in  trade  unions  which  have-  attempted  to  organise 
the  Middle  Class  such  as  the  National  Union  of 
Clerks  will  be  able  to  bear  witness  to  the  consistently 
hostile  attitude  of  that  class  where  '  labour '  is 
concerned. 

The  strikers  themselves  would  be  between  the 
devil  and  the  deep  sea.  If  they  tried  passive 
resistance,  they  would  be  cut  off  from  the  means  of 
existence,  from  food,  from  clothes,  and  from  all 
that  makes  life  worth  living,  all  these  things  behind 
a  wall  of  steel  and  powder.  If  they  tried  physical 
force,  to  which  they  would  be  inevitably  driven, 
they  would  be  shot  down. 

What  we  should  see  in  England,  as  in  any  other 
European  country,  would  be  a  gigantic  battue,  in 
which  the  strikers  rounded  up,  huddled  into  groups, 
hunted  and  harried  underground,  would  be  shot 
down  like  rats.  There  would  be  killing,  killing, 
and  yet  more  killing,  and  when  this  stage  was  past, 
and  such  a  stage  of  Civil  War  might  last  over 
many  months,  or  even  years,  there  would  be  no 
more  talk  of  direct  action  on  the  part  of  any  labour 
leader  who  wished  to  escape  the  lamp-post  at  the 
hands  of  his  own  class,  and  there  would  be  no  more 
214 


Labour  at  the  Cross-Road 

labour   movement — at  least   not  in   our   day  and 

generation.      But   there   might   also   be   no   more 

civilisation. 

•  ••••• 

Only,  let  us  make  no  mistake  about  it,  none  of 
these  considerations  will  weigh  in  the  slightest 
with  the  Bolshevist,  whether  he  be  in  Moscow  or  in 
London,  in  Berlin  or  in  Paris.  He  will  in  the 
future  as  always,  be  obsessed  with  the  idea  that 
the  working-man  is  conscious — more  or  less — 
that  he  knows  clearly  the  goal  towards  which  he  is 
working,  and  that  he  is  prepared  to  make  great 
self-sacrifices  and  to  give  life  itself  if  necessary  to 
attain  that  goal.  Nothing  on  this  round  globe  can 
be  done  or  said  to  persuade  Mr  Lenin  that  the 
army,  the  navy  and  the  police,  composed  as  they 
are  by  the  working-class,  are  other  than  *  class- 
conscious,'  if  not  in  esse  then  in  posse ^  for  circum- 
stances have  forced  him  to  exchange  the  former 
for  the  latter.  And  nothing  will  ever  be  able  to 
convince  him  or  his  fellow  fanatics  that  when  the 
word  to  strike  comes,  the  soldier  will  not  throw 
down  or  run  off  with  his  rifle,  that  the  navy-man 
will  not  chuck  his  gun-sights  overboard  (a  favourite 
pastime  in  the  early  part  of  the  century)  and  hoist 
the  red  flag,  and  that  the  man  in  blue  will  not 
throw  away  his  truncheon,  or,  better  still,  *  use  it 
on  the  superintendent.' 

The  danger  of  such  men  lies  not  in  their  power 
to  wage  successful  revolution,  for,  in  the  ultimate 
sense,  successful  physical  revolution  has  never 
been  waged  in  the  history  of  the  world,  but  in 
their  power  to  send  civilisation   crashing  to  the 

215 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

dust.  Like  Samson,  the  blinded  giant,  filled  with 
fury  and  hate,  they  will  not  hesitate  to  bury  them- 
selves beneath  the  ruins  of  that  civilisation  if  by 
so  doing  they  can  maim  and  kill  their  enemies. 

Dismal  prophecies!  the  world  which  has  learnt 
little  or  nothing  from  the  Great  War,  may  say. 

Had  any  man  or  woman  ten  years  before  the 
world  war  dared  to  prophesy  even  a  tithe  of  the 
iniquities  and  horrors  of  that  shocker  of  precon- 
ceived ideas,  he  or  she  would  have  been  regarded 
as  fit  candidate  for  prison  or  lunatic  asylum.  But 
it  is  just  that  very  war  which  has  shown  that  nothing 
is  impossible,  not  even  that  infinitely  greater 
cataclysm  which  will  come  inevitably  if  Demos 
take  the  road  of  Direct  Action. 

And  after  White  Civilisation  has  been  shaken 
to  its  foundations  by  the  coming  of  the  Red  peril, 
and  perhaps  flung  into  oblivion,  its  survivors  may 
one  day  see  rising  out  of  the  East  the  shadow  of 
the  Yellow  Colossus,  which  Lenin  at  least  has 
done  and  will  continue  to  do  his  best  to  materialise. 
And  so  history  may  yet  see  the  Chinaman  or  the 
Indian,  instead  of  Macaulay's  New  Zealander, 
standing  upon  the  deserted  wharves  of  a  vanished 
white  civilisation  to  watch  the  rats  as  they  scutter 
over  its  ruins. 


216 


XIX 

IF    LABOUR    CAME    TO    POWER 

If  we  assume  that  Labour  chooses  for  its  climb  to 
power  the  broad,  easy  way  of  the  *  Mass- Vote,* 
used  by  an  uneducated,  untrained  proletariat, 
instead  of  the  short  but  rocky  road  of  *  Direct 
Action,'  as  indeed  it  seems  more  than  likely  that  it 
will,  we  shall  see  the  gradual  concretion  of  the 
Machine  State,  resistless  as  the  formation  of  a 
crystal.  All  this,  despite  the  many  splits  in  the 
labour  forces  both  before  and  after  it  has  come  to 
power.  Whilst  the  adoption  of  physical  force 
might  conceivably  see  the  crashing  of  civilisation, 
the  process  at  least  would  be  short  and  sudden,  with 
the  possibility,  ultimately,  of  a  new  and  better 
civilisation  arising  out  of  the  ashes  of  the  old.  If, 
however.  Democracy  persists  in  the  sand-bagging 
of  society  by  the  *  Mass  Vote,'  we  should  see,  not 
the  crashing  of  a  civilisation,  but  its  crumbling. 
We  should  see  a  sclerosis  of  civilisation  extending 
over  a  lengthy  period  with,  at  the  end,  a  degradation 
and  intensive  dry-rot  from  which  it  might  take  the 
White  Races  centuries  to  recover. 

Demos,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  is  in  all  countries 
in  the  vast  majority.  In  nearly  all  modern  countries 
the  vote  has  given  him  absolute  powers  when  he 
cares  to  use  them.  He  has  literally  only  to  go  to 
the  polls  and  put  a  black  cross  on  a  piece  of  white 

2If 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

paper  in  sufficient  numbers  to  assure  the  return 
of  the  Labour  candidate — and  the  deed  is  done. 
Nor  is  there  any  man,  however  uneducated,  who 
cannot  make  a  black  mark  upon  a  piece  of  white 
paper. 

The  plan  of  the  engineers  of  the  Machine  State 
is  perfectly  plain  for  all  the  world  to  see.  First, 
as  they  have  been  doing,  they  are  going  to  win 
over  the  working  man  by  the  promise  of  more  pay 
for  less  work,  and  it  must  always  be  remembered 
that  the  Labour  leader  has  a  purse  of  Fortunatus 
from  which  to  draw — that  is  to  say,  the  purse  of 
promises.  Then  the  municipalities  and  local 
governing  bodies  are  to  be  captured,  which,  indeed, 
has  already  been  done  in  many  European  countries 
with  extraordinary  success.  Finally,  the  parlia- 
ments of  the  world  are  to  be  won  for  Democracy. 

From  that  moment,  the  average  labour  leader 
visualises  a  society  in  which  the  labour  leader  will 
be  supreme;  a  society  in  which  everything  will  be 
decided  by  the  holding  up  of  hands;  and  a  society 
in  which,  therefore,  inevitably,  the  rights  of  the 
minority  would  be  brought  to  the  irreducible 
minimum.  We  are  beginning  at  times  to  hear  of 
'  protection  of  minorities,'  but  any  labour  man 
who  knows  the  minds  of  the  labour  leaders,  political 
or  industrial,  will  know  that  in  their  heart  of  hearts 
they  subscribe  to  the  power  of  the  majority  vote, 
only  with  the  proviso  secret,  almost  unconscious, 
in  their  hearts  .  .  .  that  this  vote  shall  always  be 
under  the  control  of  the  labour  leaders  themselves  1 

To  this,  as  to  all  similar  statements,  there  are  of 
course  some  fine  exceptions. 
2i8 


//  Labour  came  to  Power 

In  imagination,  these  gentlemen  see  themselves 
attending  congresses  and  telling  the  congresses 
what  to  do  and  how  to  vote.  They  see  themselves 
in  the  Labour  Parliaments  of  the  future  getting  up 
and  making  speeches  to  the  admiration  of  the 
common  herd  outside.  And,  above  and  beyond  all, 
they  see  that  common  herd,  docile,  ready  to  be 
*  guided  '  by  their  pastors  and  masters,  as  they 
undoubtedly  would  be  guided. 

If  it  be  doubted  that  the  labour  bureaucrat  of 
the  Machine  State  will  be  autocrat,  or  that  the 
rank  and  file  will  acquiesce,  it  is  only  necessary  to 
turn  to  the  past  record  of  the  majority  of  the 
leaders  of  Demos.  Hardly  a  congress  before  the 
war  was  held  where  the  leaders,  sacrosanct,  sitting 
in  the  seats  of  the  mighty,  did  not  show  themselves 
unbelievably  thin-skinned  to  criticism  from  the 
rank  and  file,  who  sometimes  protested,  but  more 
usually  acquiesced.  During  the  war,  it  is  true, 
with  the  direct  actionist  getting  the  bit  in  his  teeth, 
the  leaders  had  at  least  to  assume  a  certain  amen- 
ability to  discipline,  but  to-day,  as  we  have  seen 
at  recent  labour  congresses,  the  labour  leader, 
instead  of  taking  the  golden  middle  way  of  being 
for  the  rank  and  file  guide  and  interpreter,  is  once 
more  becoming  bureaucrat  and  autocrat. 

But  quite  apart  from  the  question  of  becoming 
bureaucrat  or  autocrat,  it  is  assured  that  the  Labour 
leader,  for  the  time  at  least,  will  have  no  difficulty 
in  regaining  his  old  position  of  dominance. 

We  have  already  seen  Mr  J.  H.  Thomas,  against 
whom  so  many  accusations  have  been  hurled, 
possibly  wrongfully,  accused  as  he  was  by  certain 

219 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

sections  of  the  labour  movement  of  being  chiefly 
responsible  for  the  refusal  of  the  railway  and 
transport  workers  to  come  to  the  assistance  of  the 
miners,  their  comrades  in  the  *  Triple  Alliance/ 
in  their  1921  strike,  immediately  afterwards 
triumphantly  returned  to  supreme  power  at  a 
conference  of  the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen 
by  57  votes  to  17.  With  power  so  easily  gained 
and  held,  it  will  be  difficult  for  the  labour  leader 
of  the  future  to  resist  the  trend  to  bureaucracy 
and  autocracy. 

And  when  the  Machine  State  has  evolved,  in 
which  in  the  minds  of  the  labour  leaders  a  strong 
central  caucus  will  '  run  the  country '  through 
hordes  of  officials,  local  and  national,  with  the 
accompanying  rain  of  edicts  which  we  have  seen 
in  Bolshevist  Russia,  is  it  probable  that  the  bureau- 
crat of  that  day,  with  enormously  consolidated 
and  increased  powers,  is  likely  even  to  pay  lip- 
service  to  the  democracy  which  he  professes  to 
serve  ?  Is  it  not  assured,  even  as  to-day  almost 
every  country  in  Europe  where  Labour  is  winning 
to  power  has  shown  it,  that  the  bureaucrat  will 
fast  pass  into  the  autocrat,  impregnably  entrenched 
behind  his  *  official  *  bulwarks,  finally  reaching 
what  seems  to  be  the  inevitable  goal  of  democracy 
in   our  times — a  dictatorship. 

And  if  *  the  horde  of  officials '  is  not  contemplated 
— then  what  is  ? 

Under  such  a  clockwork  regime  all  initiative 
would  be  lamed;  the  artist  would  be  looked  upon 
as  of  less  moment  than  any  handworker  of  them 
all;  and  the  individualist  minority,  struggling 
220 


//  Labour  came  to  Power 

ever  more  faintiy,  would  be  crushed  beneath  the 
iron  heel — not  of  the  capitalist,  but  of  democracy 
itself:   under  the  dead  weight  of  the  *  Mass  Vote.* 

Does  any  sane  man  imagine  that  the  labour 
leader  of  to-day  knows  or  cares  anything  about  the 
sculptures  of  a  Rodin;  the  Mona  Lisa  of  a  da 
Vinci;  or  even  the  plays  of  a  George  Bernard 
Shaw  ?  or,  what  is  much  more  important,  that  on 
their  present  road  they  or  their  followers  are  ever 
likely  to  do  so  ?  Mr  Shaw  may  think  so,  but  if  he 
does  he  is  the  only  person  who  is  of  that  opinion. 

Does  anybody  imagine  that  in  their  smug, 
self-satisfaction  it  ever  enters  the  mind  of  the  average 
labour  leader  that  there  are  men  and  women  of  all 
classes  with  strongly  individual  tastes  in  houses, 
books,  furniture,  and  food  ?  Do  those  of  us  who 
have  known  them  intimately  over  many  years 
and  who  still  retain  some  belief  in  the  liberty  of  the 
individual  and  his  right  to  determine  his  own 
environment,  believe  that  these  utilitarian  bureau- 
crats, with  some  rare  exceptions — the  exceptions 
for  which  we  have  allowed  steadily  throughout 
these  pages — do  not  contemplate  as  the  natural 
and  desirable  goal  of  labour,  rows  of  square,  box- 
like houses,  with  of  course  plenty  of  air-space  to 
live  in,  or  at  best,  the  stuccoes  of  villadom ;  heavy 
clothes  of  sober  Sunday  black  for  feast-daj's ;  and, 
if  such  insignia  could  again  be  resurrected,  in  the 
secret  hearts  of  some,  the  pot  hat  and  the  frock 
coat,  which  has  alwa}*s  been  associated  in  the  mind 
of  a  certain  type  of  Trade  Union  official  with 
prosperity  and  general  happiness  ?  Their  goal 
is  still  that  of  a  sublimated  bourgeoisie. 

221 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Here  are  the  words  of  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  the  Labour  leaders  and  an  ex-M.P., 
himself  one  of  the  most  militant  Socialists  in  the 
country,  in  a  recent  letter  to  the  writer,  a  man  who 
has  held  the  highest  offices  in  the  Labour  movement, 
and  who  is  still  one  of  the  most  prominent  and  most 
active,  if  at  times  protestant,  workers  within  its 
ranks,  in  regard  to  the  possible  coming  of  the 
Machine  State,  which  indeed  he  fears.  He  says: 
*  Rather  than  live  under  such  a  regime,  in  which 
all  individual  liberty  would  be  abolished  and  in 
which  the  man  would  become  the  slave  of  the 
machine,  I  would  prefer  capitalism  itself,  with  all 
its  disadvantages,  for  under  it  at  least  there  is 
some  pretence  to  liberty  and  some  freedom  of 
movement.* 

We  will  assume  that  Labour  has  crushed  its 
way  to  power  by  the  Juggernaut  of  the  *  Mass 
Vote,'  and  that  some  fine  Monday  morning  it 
finds  itself  enthroned  in  Westminster,  or  in  the 
French  Chamber,  or  in  the  American  House  of 
Representatives.  Let  us  see  with  what  it  would 
be  faced. 

The  first  thing  with  which  it  would  be  faced  in 
any  country,  just  as  a  Bolshevik  government 
would  be  faced  with  it,  would  be  the  problem  of 
feeding  the  millions  of  the  working-classes.  Nor 
would  those  working-classes,  unless  they  had  been 
so  drilled  and  dragooned  as  to  become  mere 
automata,  take  any  excuses.  The  Labour  govern- 
ment had  promised  to  provide  plethora  in  a  land 
of  plenty.  The  government  would  have  to  produce 
it. 

222 


//  Labour  came  to  Power 

But  the  next  thing  the  Labour  government 
would  be  up  against  would  be  its  own  ghosts!  the 
ghosts  of  '  ca'  canny.' 

In  order  to  produce  plethora,  or  even  plenty, 
production  itself  would  have  to  be  increased  out  of 
all  computation.  The  Labour  government  would 
find,  as  both  Lenin  and  Trotzky  have  found  to 
their  bitter  sorrow,  that  men  who  *  ca'  canny '  under 
capitalism  are  still  more  likely  to  *  ca'  canny  '  under 
Socialism.  It  is  a  fact  which  cannot  be  disputed 
or  set  aside  that  the  reason  of  the  utter  collapse 
of  the  Russian  transport  system  under  the  Bolshevists 
was  not  due  to  the  lack  of  material  for  the  repair  of 
locomotives  and  rolling  stock,  etc.,  as  indeed  I 
have  had  it  from  the  Socialists  who  investigated  it, 
but  simply  because  the  average  Russian  mechanic 
and  engineer,  after  Lenin  had  been  forced  to  give 
the  Russians  proprietary  rights  in  the  land,  preferred 
the  dolce  far  niente  of  life  on  the  land  to  work 
in  the  factory.  In  vain  did  the  Bolshevik  leaders 
use  both  threat  and  promise  to  these  emhusques 
of  Russia  to  come  out  from  their  comfortable 
retreats  in  the  country  into  the  factories  and  work- 
shops '  for  the  sake  of  Russia  and  for  the  sake  of 
Communism.'  They  steadfastly  refused  to  budge 
an  inch  to  save  either  country  or  comrade,  just 
as  the  Russian  peasant,  despite  his  sudden  con- 
version to  Bolshevism,  refused  to  give  up  a  grain 
of  corn  to  save  starving  Russia,  but  preferred  to 
hide  it  and  let  it  rot. 

And  so  the  Labour  government  of  the  future, 
carried  into  office  by  the  automatic  machinery  of 
the  mass-vote,  behind  it  only  votes  and  not  men, 

223 


Labour  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

noses  and  not  convictions,  would  be  faced  with  the 
fact  that  men,  working  men,  to-day,  in  their  present 
stage  of  development,  taught  to  regard  the  right 
of  the  majority  as  the  right  divine,  having  learned 
the  materialist  lessons  with  which  they  have  been 
doped  for  the  past  decade  in  most  European 
countries,  would  ca*  canny  as  they  had  never  done 
before  under  Capitalism. 

What  would  the  Labour  leaders  do  ? 

They  would  be  as  inevitably  forced  into  the  use 
of  the  Big  Stick  as  any  capitalist  of  them  all,  or  as, 
indeed,  Lenin  himself,  an  idealist  State  socialist, 
was  forced  into  it,  or,  as  we  have  before  seen,  any 
*  direct  action  '  government  would  be  forced  into 
it. 

They  would  be  compelled  to  mobilise  the  Red 
Army,  whatever  the  country,  whether  Britain  or 
France,  Germany  or  the  United  States,  and  having 
done  so,  would  have  to  call  upon  it  to  shoot  down 
their  own  ca*  cannying  comrades,  exactly  as  the 
Red  Army  of  Russia  did  in  repeated  instances  under 
the  orders  of  Lenin  and  Trotzky,  neither  of  whom 
wished  to  give  them,  but  who  were  compelled  by 
the  ruthless  drive  of  circumstances  which  masters 
conservative  and  bolshevist  alike. 

That  of  course  would  be  the  first  step  leading 
to  civil  war,  in  other  words  to  hell,  for  an  English 
workman  or  a  French  workman  or  an  American 
workman  is  not  so  docile  and  easily  driven  as  have 
been  the  Russian  workmen,  and  he  would  resent 
compulsion  from  his  own  comrades  as  he  has 
never  resented  it  from  a  capitalist  government. 

A  constitutional  Labour  government,  returned 
224 


•  //  Labour  came  to  "Power 

on  the  mass-vote,  so  long  as  the  bulk  of  the  working- 
class  trusts  to  that  vote  rather  than  to  education 
and  remains  in  its  present  spiritual  ignorance, 
would  be  faced  inevitably  and  logically  with 
dictatorship — just  as  we  have  seen  a  Bolshevist 
government  would  be  faced  with  it.  In  fact, 
whether  a  Labour  government,  with  the  workman 
in  his  present  condition,  climbed  to  power  by  the 
mass-vote  or  seized  power  by  a  coup  d'etat  of 
*  direct  action,*  it  would  ultimately  be  faced  always 
with  dictatorship. 

In  other  words,  the  Labour  bureaucrats  would 
be  reduced  to  the  ignominious  necessity  of  telling 
the  socialist  comrades  what  they  had  refused  to 
tell  them  under  capitalism — that  the  law  of  life, 
whether  under  Socialism  or  Capitalism,  is  '  Produce 
or  perish  1  '  that  the  only  source  of  wealth  is  labour, 
whether  by  hand  or  brain,  applied  to  the  earth, 
from  which  we  all  draw  our  life. 

And  they  would  be  faced  with  the  fact  to  which 
they  wilfully,  for  many  of  them  are  intelligent  men 
and  women  who  know  that  fact  to-day,  blind 
themselves — ^the  fact  that  the  working  man  through- 
out the  world  and  still  more  the  working  woman 
who,  since  the  war,  in  countries  like  England,  have 
revolutionised  the  constitution  of  the  labour 
movement,  and  who,  during  the  war,  poured  into 
the  trade  unions  only  to  pour  out  again,  has  not 
in  any  number  yet  reached  that  stage  of  development 
where  work  is  done  for  its  own  sake  (hardly  any- 
body outside  the  artist  has  reached  it !),  and  where 
men  and  women  in  the  mass  are  prepared  to 
sacrifice  self  for  the  sake  of  the  community. 

225 


hah  our  :   The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

Whether  they  like  it  or  not,  and  in  their  hearts 
the  majority  of  them  know  it,  men  and  women 
are  still  driven  primarily  in  the  field  of  labour  by 
the  stimuli  of  gain,  and  the  preservation  of  self, 
just  as  their  masters  are  driven  primarily  by  the 
lust  for  power.  Men  and  women  of  the  working- 
class  in  the  mass,  and  always  excepting  that  tiny 
handful  of  idealists  of  whom  we  have  so  constantly 
spoken,  still  do  their  work  only  under  the  fear  of 
unemployment  and  poverty,  and  it  is  as  assured  as 
anything  can  be  that  these  spurs  to  endeavour  will 
be  used  persistently  and  ceaselessly  by  the  evolu- 
tionary gods  until  they  no  longer  become  necessary, 
and  can  be  replaced  by  the  splendid  spurs  of  self- 
sacrifice  and  *  community  sense,'  as  they  at  one 
time  in  the  labour  movement  seemed  to  be  beginning 
to  be  replaced. 

If  the  labour  leaders  want  full  demonstration 
of  the  fatuity  of  their  belief  that  Demos  will  win 
his  way  to  liberty  primarily  through  improvement 
of  his  material  conditions,  or  that  he  is  yet  ready 
to  take  power,  they  have  only  to  look  at  the  facts 
of  the  war.  When  the  European  workman  was 
receiving  double  wages  in  certain  countries,  and 
especially  in  the  neutral  countries,  during  the  war, 
as  the  writer  had  opportunity  to  observe,  he  did 
not  spend  his  increased  money  on  books  or  self- 
improvement,  but  on  food  and  beer  and  pleasure. 
Those  who  during  the  war  visited  countries  like 
Holland  and  Denmark  will  not  readily  forget  the 
deterioration  of  large  sections  of  the  working-classes 
in  those  countries,  due  to  the  way  in  which  they 
wasted  their  increased  wages. 
226 


.  //  Labour  came  to  Power 

Demos  may  beat  his  way  to  power  through  the 
bludgeon  of  the  mass-vote.  He  may  one  day, 
and  certainly  will  one  day,  find  himself  seated  en- 
throned in  Westminster  as  in  the  American  Congress 
Chamber,  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  and  the  other 
parliaments  of  the  world.  But  when  he  has  reached 
his  ambition  he  will  find  himself  farther  than  ever 
from  his  goal,  and  it  may  even  be  that  his  failure 
may  throw  democracy  once  more  into  the  melting 
pot  and  see  a  recoil  to  the  slave-state.  He  will  find, 
as  all  mankind  has  found  throughout  the  centuries, 
that  revolutions  are  made  not  behind  the  barricade 
but  in  the  brain;  not  in  the  holding  up  of  hands 
but  by  the  slow  and  tortuous  evolution  of  mind  and 
spirit — in  other  words,  by  that  third  road  of  '  Self- 
development  '  so  uninviting  and  so  difficult. 

To  modify  even  the  shape  of  a  finger,  nature, 
with  eternity  before  her,  takes  her  thousands  of 
years.  To  modify  the  shape  of  a  man's  mind, 
she  may  take  her  hundreds.  Demos  to-day, 
despite  all  his  massing  together,  despite  or  even 
because  of  the  very  words  on  his  lips  of  '  brother- 
hood '  and  *  democracy,*  and  his  *  material  * 
improvement,  is  still,  in  the  mass,  essentially  un- 
changed from  the  Demos  of  yesterday.  Within 
the  last  fifty  years  we  have  seen  this  blinded  giant, 
raising  himself  on  his  belly,  struggling  blindly 
towards  the  light,  only  within  the  last  decade  once 
more  to  sink  down  again  into  the  dust — the  dust  of 
direct  action  and  the  mass-vote — whilst,  coming  up 
from  behind,  his  comrades,  like  him,  blinded,  unheed- 
ing, trample  him  still  deeper  as  they  press  forward 
towards  the  will  o'  the  wisps  of  modern  Democracy. 

227 


XX 


PROBLEMS  FACING  THE  RISING  DEMOCRACY 

And  so  we  have  come  along  a  tortuous  road  to  the 
problems  facing  the  rising  democracy. 

The  immediate  problem  which  faces  it  is  the 
question  of  *  labour  unrest,*  and  its  solution. 

Hitherto  it  has  always  been  assumed  that  the 
solution  of  labour  unrest  was  to  come  from  the 
employing  classes,  who,  by  some  patent  panacea 
agreed  upon  between  capital  and  labour,  and 
administered  to  Demos,  with  his  consent,  was  to 
cure  the  feverishness  of  the  patient.  From  that 
happy  moment,  strikes  were  to  be  things  of  the 
past  and  we  were  to  see  a  sort  of  capital  and  labour 
millennium  with  prosperity  all  round. 

All  this  is  but  a  pleasant,  foolish  dream.  The 
solution  of  labour  unrest  can  only  come  from  labour 
itself,  because  it  can  only  be  solved  by  the  slow 
process  of  education  and  self-development  of 
Demos.  Not  only  education  from  above.  Not 
only  development  from  above.  But  education  and 
development  by  himself.  Demos  must  be  his 
own  saviour.  At  present  he  hangs  upon  his  cross, 
but  hangs  of  his  own  inertia.  Some  day  he  will 
come  down  from  it. 

Labour  will  one  day  have  to  face  the  unpleasant 
reality  that,  however  ugly  capitalism  may  be  in 
some  of  its  manifestations,  however  destructive 
228 


,   Problems  Facing  the  Rising  Democracy 

the  competitive  system  may  be  upon  many  of  its 
sides,  the  fact  remains  that  neither  the  working  man 
on  the  one  hand  nor  the  employer  on  the  other  is 
yet  ready  for  any  other  system.  The  triple  drive 
of  struggle  and  ambition  and  gain  is  still  necessary 
in  the  scheme  of  evolution.  When  Demos  has 
reached  such  a  point  of  development  as  to  make 
a  system  of  greater  co-operation  possible,  then 
that  system  will  come.  But  to  make  it  possible 
he,  like  other  members  of  society,  will  have  to 
develop  self-sacrifice  and  *  community  sense  * 
beyond  anything  which,  save  in  the  individual, 
we  know  to-day  upon  this  very  imperfect  earth, 
taking  that  third  road  of  self-development. 

And  to  do  so  he  will  first  of  all  have  to  get  rid 
of  the  illusion  that  by  changing  the  system  he 
changes  the  human  being  behind  it. 

The  pity  of  it  all  is,  as  we  have  seen  in  these 
pages,  that  the  replacement  of  competition  by 
co-operation  has  been  apparent  rather  than  real, 
and  that  Demos  will  have  to  deliberately  retrace 
his  steps  back  to  the  point  where  he  first  shed  his 
ideals  of  spiritual  for  purely  material  advancement. 
But  to  take  that  step  alone  implies  something  like 
a  miracle — the  miracle  of  a  change  of  outlook  and 
of  that  hardest  of  all  things — the  admittance 
of  error.  One  cannot  see  him  taking  it 
to-day. 

Again  and  again  we  have  had  all  sorts  of  patent 
panaceas  put  forward  for  the  solution  of  labour 
unrest.  We  have  seen  Co-partnership  tried,  and 
we  have  seen  it  fail.  We  have  had  Bonuses  for 
Increased  Output  hailed  in  its  time  as  the  solution, 

L..  Q  229 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

only  to  find  that  production  steadily  declined. 
Paternalism,  that  most  insidious,  though  often  best- 
intentioned  of  all  *  labour-workhouse  '  experiments 
has  been  tried  by  various  philanthropic  business 
men  both  in  England  and  America — but  it  has 
had  literally  no  effect  upon  the  great  labour  mass, 
which  has  turned  aside  with  contempt  from  free 
houses  and  free  bowling  greens  and  free  gym- 
nasiums to  prefer  its  own  private  pig-styes,  which 
indeed  is  only  individualist  human  nature  and  not 
altogether  bad  human  nature  at  that. 

*  Joint-Committees  '  of  employers  and  employees 
like  those  suggested  by  the  Whitley  Report  Com- 
mittee in  England  have  then  been  hailed  as  the 
philosopher's  stone  which  was  to  solve  what  has 
become  '  the  Riddle  of  the  Age  '—only  to  result, 
as  in  after-the-war  England,  in  a  perfect  epidemic 
of  strikes. 

A  hundred  other  *  solutions '  have  been  put 
forward,  and  some  of  them  have  deluded  both 
employer  and  employee  by  apparently  succeeding 
for  a  time.  But  such  *  successful '  experiments 
are  invariably  artificially  nurtured  and  *  protected,' 
and  succeed  exactly  as  socialist  settlements  like 
those  of  Robert  Owen  succeeded — for  a  time, 
only  in  the  end  for  the  people  who  made  them 
*  to  revert  to  type '  and  for  the  experiments  to  fall 
to  pieces  at  the  first  breath  of  reality. 

What  all  the  experimenters  have  forgotten  is 
that  the  ultimate  factor  of  the  labour  problem  is  the 
factor  of  the  human  being  himself.  All  evolution 
turns  upon  the  fulcrum  of  human  character.  As 
is  the  man,  so  will  the  system  be. 
230 


'Problems  Facing  the  Rising  Democracy 

That  is  why  all  attempts  *  to  make  people  moral 
by  act  of  parliament,'  which  exactly  expresses 
most  of  the  schemes  of  democracy  in  the  later 
years  as  it  expresses  the  schemes  for  the  solution 
of  labour  unrest,  are  doomed  to  failure,  and  why 
as  a  matter  of  actual  fact  they  have  failed  and  are 
failing.  It  has  been  truly  said  that  no  legislator 
can  legislate  more  than  an  inch  beyond  the  noses 
of  the  mass. 

There  is  no  solution  for  labour  unrest^  beyond  the 
building  up  of  human  character — a  slow  process  but 
the  only  process,  and  a  solution  which  applies  not 
only  to  the  working  man  but  to  his  employer.  All 
other  *  solutions  '  are  snares  and  they  prevent  the 
real  solution  by  wasting  time  and  effort.  And  the 
character  of  Demos  can  only  be  built  up  by  Demos 
himself. 

When  he  has  developed  all  those  qualities  which 
to-day  he  lacks,  his  character  will  be  changed,  and 
when  his  character  is  changed  the  system  will  be 
changed,  for  only  then  will  he  be  able  to  effectively 
use  the  numerical  strength  which  to-day  is  but  a 
weakness.  Not  one  moment  before  and  not  one 
moment  after. 

When  enthusiastic  Socialist  writers  like  Frank 
Tannenbaum,  the  American,  assert,  as  he  has 
asserted  in  his  recent  book  on  the  labour  movement 
that  *  the  control  of  the  machine  is  the  root  problem 
of  the  labour  movement ; '  that  *  the  labour  move- 
ment is  the  result,  and  the  machine  is  the  major 
cause,'  they  are  falling  into  that  incredible  phantasy 
of  the  modern  Socialist  and  Labour  writer  and 
leader  that  the  machine  is  greater  than  the  man 

231 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

who  made  it,  and  that  it  is  the  machine  and  not  the 
human  being  which  stands  behind  society.  It  is 
the  eternal,  infernal :  *  change  the  system  and 
you  change  the  system-maker.* 

It  is  the  half-truth  of  Karl  Marx  that  man  is 
made  only  by  his  physical  environment,  forgetting 
that  man  also  makes  his  environment.  Like  *  the 
solutions  of  labour  unrest '  themselves,  it  is  the 
curse  of  the  half-truth. 

They  forget  that  changing  the  system  or  *  con- 
trolling the  machine  '  will  not  alter  what  Tannen- 
baum  himself  says  in  his  book  is  the  Labour  move- 
ment's *  frequent  narrowmindedness,  its  bickerings, 
its  squabbles,  its  internal  politics,  its  lack  of  social 
foresight,  its  jurisdictional  disputes  and  the 
tendencies  that  have  made  possible  the  New  York 
city  building  scandals.* 

The  very  most  that  can  be  done  to-day  to  allay 
labour  unrest  is  the  establishment  of  *  the  Double 
Principle  ' — the  Principle  of  the  Minimum  Wage 
and  the  even  more  important  Principle  of  the 
Right  to  Work.     Nothing  more. 

That  would  seem  to  be  the  most  that  organised 
Democracy  in  its  present  stage  of  development 
can  reach  to-day  with  permanent  benefit  to  itself 
and  to  society.  A  standard  minimum  wage,  based 
upon  a  sliding  scale  of  wages  and  prices  is  essential 
to  the  upkeep  of  the  standard  of  life.  The  Right  to 
Work  or  Maintenance,  or,  as  one  would  prefer  to 
put  it:  *  The  Right  to  Live,'  that  is,  the  provision 
of  work  for  every  human  being  of  either  sex  able 
to  work,  or  pending  the  provision  of  work,  the 
provision  of  support,  is  also  essential  if  we  are  to 
232 


.    Problems  Facing  the  Rising  Democracy 

keep  up  the  self-respect  both  of  Society  and  of  the 
individuals  composing  it. 

Beyond  that  dual-principle,  let  the  workman, 
as  his  master,  go  out  into  the  world  of  competition 
and,  frankly,  compete  for  the  plums  of  life.  For 
competition,  despite  all  fine  theories,  is  still  essential 
to  the  development  of  the  human  being. 

Some  day,  competition  on  the  economic  plane 
will  be  lifted  from  that  plane  to  competition  upon 
the  planes  of  the  intellectual  and  spiritual,  as 
indeed  in  the  cases  of  the  more  highly  developed 
human  beings  it  is  now  being  partially  lifted,  but 
that  day  is  not  yet.  It  needs  for  its  accomplishment 
the  development  in  the  mass  of  a  human  being  of 
another  type  than  we  know  to-day. 

So  much  for  Democracy's  immediate  problem 
of  labour  unrest.  Now  for  the  other  problems 
which  face  the  rising  democracy. 

The  first  and  chief  of  these  problems  is  that  of 
goal. 

The  Labour  movement  to-day  has  to  decide 
once  and  for  all  whether  its  goal  is  that  of  '  beer, 
bread,  and  'baccy,*  or  that  original  goal  towards 
which  the  labour  pioneers  set  their  faces — the  goal 
of  what  has  been  called  *  bread  and  roses,'  a  goal 
of  the  spiritual  whilst  not  ignoring  the  material. 

It  is  entirely  certain  that  if  Labour  holds  to  its 
present  material  goal,  we  shall  see  increasing 
numbers  of  working  men  in  all  countries  allying 
themselves  to  the  Labour  parties  of  those  countries, 
simply  because  the  material  goal  is  easy  of  under- 
standing and  because  the  filling  of  the  hungry 
belly  is  easier  to  grasp  than  the  filling  of  the  hungry 

333 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

soul.  Nobody  who  has  watched  the  trend  of 
Labour  throughout  the  world  during  and  since 
the  war  can  doubt  that  Demos  will  clamber  to 
power  over  the  bodies  and  even  the  souls  of  society, 
and  that  we  shall  see  attempts  at  Labour  govern- 
ments in  several  European  countries,  although 
not  in  America,  within  the  next  two  decades. 

And  we  shall  see  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that, 
as  was  said  at  the  opening  of  these  pages,  the 
labour  movement,  not  only  of  Great  Britain  but  of 
all  countries,  is  honeycombed  through  and  through 
by  differences  of  outlook,  differences  of  tactics, 
and  various  other  differences  theoretical  and 
practical.  The  British  labour  movement  will, 
for  example,  probably  split  into  two  or  even  three 
parts  within  the  next  ten  years,  into  the  *  all-reds  ' 
and  the  *  pale-pinks,'  and,  that  more  vital  difference, 
into  those  who  have  a  spiritual  and  those  who  have 
a  materialist  goal.  But  none  of  these  differences 
will  radically  affect  the  clamber  to  power  by  the 
sheer  dead  weight  and  inertia  of  the  mass  of  the 
working-class,  who  will  continue  to  hold  up  their 
hands  and  to  count  their  noses  and  to  follow  their 
leaders — until  they  both  fall  into  the  ditch  of 
*  success  *  and  experience. 

For  it  has  to  be  remembered  that  the  ardent 
spirits  in  any  movement  form  a  very  small  minority, 
and  with  the  gradual  crystallisation  of  the  Machine, 
gathering  momentum  as  it  grows,  and  losing  soul, 
we  shall  see  such  minorities  reduced  to  impotence 
...  for  the  time. 

The  next  problem  facing  the  rising  democracy 
is  that  of  tactics. 
234 


Problems  Facing  the  Rising  Democracy 

Democracy  has  even  now  not  made  up  its  mind 
as  to  whether  it  will  use  *  Direct  Action  *  or  the 
*  Vote  '  in  its  march  to  power,  and,  in  the  case  of 
the  latter,  the  vital  question  as  to  whether  *  noses  * 
or  *  brains  '  are  to  be  the  determinative  factors  in 
its  inspiration  and  guidance. 

Demos  for  the  moment  and  in  the  reaction  which 
has  followed  the  widespread  after-war  unemploy- 
ment in  Europe,  is  cowed,  and  scarcely  takes  the 
trouble  to  use  his  vote  inside  his  own  unions,  as 
has  been  shown  in  the  votes,  for  example,  taken 
in  Britain  upon  the  continuation  or  otherwise  of 
the  1 92 1  Miners'  Strike  and  in  the  Generale  Con- 
federation du  Travail  of  France,  where,  in  the 
midsummer  of  192 1,  upon  questions  of  striking 
or  not  striking,  the  votes  cast  fell  by  as  much  as 
fifty  per  cent,  in  many  unions.  But  from  this 
there  will  probably  come  another  reaction,  and  it 
is  still  not  impossible,  as  Russia  gets  time  to  pull 
its  bolshevik  soul  together,  that,  with  the  resultant 
world-propaganda,  we  shall  see  attempts  at 
revolution  throughout  Europe  .  .  .  but  only  if,  as 
does  not  seem  impossible,  the  present  attempts  at 
the  reconstruction  of  society  go  to  pieces  with  the 
widespread  unemployment  and  strikes  which  would 
follow. 

If  Direct  Action  and  Physical  Force  finally 
carries  the  day,  we  may,  as  we  have  said,  see  the 
break  up  of  civilisation  as  we  know  it  and  persistent 
Civil  War,  with  Demos  smashed  to  earth  at  the 
finish.  This,  of  course,  would  very  effectively 
solve  the  problems  of  democracy,  for  there  would 
be  no  democracy  left. 

^35 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

On  the  political  plane,  the  problem  that  faces 
democracy  is  the  problem  of  entering  politics 
without  losing  ideals.  So  far  it  has  neither  solved 
nor  attempted  to  solve  that  problem,  which  indeed 
is  a  problem  that  faces  all  parties,  and  the  result  is 
that  we  are  presented  with  spectacles  like  that  of 
the  gouty,  comfortable-looking  gentleman,  leaning 
upon  his  sticks,  whom  the  writer  met  the  other 
day  just  outside  the  House  of  Commons,  entirely 
sceptical  and  self-satisfied,  whom  he  remembers 
only  fifteen  short  years  ago  as  an  enthusiastic  young 
idealist,  eager  to  carry  his  ideals  into  the  House 
and  through  it  into  the  nation. 

Lord  Morley  discussed  this  very  question  some 
time  ago  with  a  prominent  labour  leader  and  former 
M.P.  known  to  the  writer.  The  labour  leader, 
himself  disillusioned  with  the  leaders  of  labour 
in  parliament  and  confessing  his  disillusionment, 
said,  sadly,  that  so  far  as  he  could  see  the  only  thing 
to  do  was  to  keep  certain  men  as  *  missionaries  * 
to  the  movement  and  sternly  segregate  them  from 
the  blight  of  politics,  whilst  keeping  others,  so  to 
speak,  *  to  do  the  dirty  work '  of  the  politician. 
Lord  Morley  replied  that  until  the  propagandist 
could  be  the  politician  there  was  not  much  hope 
for  any  movement.  And  one  ventures  to  think 
that  Lord  Morley  was  right. 

But  this  problem,  like  so  many  of  those  others, 
hinges  upon  something  else — the  problem  of 
education,  not  only  intellectual  but  spiritual. 
(Incidentally,  we  are  always  speaking  about 
*  education  *  as  a  sort  of  magic  key  to  open  all  the 
doors  of  the  world  to  Demos,  whereas  no  brain 
236 


Problems  Facing  the  Rising  Democracy 

change  can  be  of  any  use  unless  it  first  be  informed 
by  a  change  of  spirit.)  When  the  Augean  stables 
of  Democracy  in  all  countries  have  been  cleansed 
by  the  pouring  in  of  new  ideals  and  by  a  new  stream 
of  conscious  thought  coming  from  the  minority, 
the  problem  of  politician  and  propagandist  will 
solve  itself.  So  far,  Demos  in  politics  has  shown 
himself  but  little  more  idealist,  but  little  more 
honest,  and  but  little  less  susceptible  to  wire- 
pulling than  the  wicked  opponents  whom  he 
professes  to  despise. 

To  take  two  concrete  cases  out  of  many. 

The  British  Parliamentary  Labour  Party,  as 
has  been  demonstrated  in  these  pages,  and  as 
indeed  has  been  stated  many  times  by  some  of  its 
own  members,  still  imperfectly  ground  into  the 
machine,  has  itself  become  a  machine-party,  in 
which  ideals  and  idealists  can  have  no  place  and 
in  which  its  members,  however  intelligent  and 
however   enthusiastic,   become   mere  voting   cogs. 

The  German  Social  Democratic  Party,  not  only 
during  the  war  but  especially  since  the  war,  when 
its  political  power  became  so  enormously  enhanced, 
has  shown  itself  as  impatient  of  the  ideas  of  other 
sections  of  the  party  as  was  ever  Prussian  Junker, 
and  it  is  and  has  been  the  bitter  complaint  of  the 
Independent  Social  Democrats,  voiced  through 
leaders  like  Georg  Ledebour,  that  they  have  been 
as  ruthlessly  suppressed  and  harried  by  their  own 
comrades  as  they  originally  were  by  the  German 
military  regime. 

On  the  industrial  plane,  Labour  is  faced  with  a 
host  of  problems  in  all  countries,  but  here  it  will 

237 


Labour :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

suffice  to  take,  as  in  many  cases  fairly  typical,  the 
problems   facing   the   British   movement. 

There  is  first  the  problem  of  *  human  nature  1* 
The  problem  of  getting  rid  of  the  official  job- 
hunter,  of  getting  the  best  men,  irrespective  of 
influence,  into  the  executive  posts,  and,  above  all, 
of  preventing  bureaucracy.  With  all  this,  and 
directly,  goes  that  hoary  problem  of  *  over-lapping.* 

In  the  British  Labour  movement,  something 
that  is  paralleled  in  other  lal>our  movements,  we 
have  first  of  all  the  Parliamentary  Labour  Party, 
with  its  annual  Labour  congresses.  Then  we 
have  the  annual  Trades  Union  congress  at  which 
exactly  the  same  speeches  are  made  upon  exactly 
the  same  subjects,  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  at 
the  annual  Labour  Party  Congress.  Finally,  we 
have  the  General  Federation  of  Trade  Unions, 
which  is  practically  the  same  thing  all  over  again 
— the  same  resolutions;  the  same  discussions; 
and  the  same  voting. 

(It  is  an  interesting  sidelight  upon  the  sectional- 
ism and  *  solidarity  *  of  Labour  that  Mr  W.  A. 
Appleton,  the  Secretary  of  the  General  Federation 
of  Trade  Unions,  in  his  article  upon  it  in  the 
Labour  Tear  Book,  writes :  *  There  is  still  a  tendency 
...  to  regard  the  Federation  as  an  institution 
into  which  you  must  pay  the  minimum  contribution 
and  from  which  you  must  extract  the  maximum 
benefit;  while  the  stupid  fear  that  the  Federation 
may  become  stronger  in  money  and  influence 
than  the  individual  organisations  affiliated.'  Out 
of  1500  Trade  Unions  which  in  the  great  Trade 
Union  Federation  campaign  of  1903  might  have 
238 


Problems  Facing  the  Rising  Democracy 

affiliated,  only  loo  did  so,  and  even  thirteen  years 
after  only  146  had  so  affiliated!) 

Of  course  these  three  bodies,  despite  all  attempts 
to  absorb  or  unite  or  abolish  them,  continue  to 
function  because  the  abolition  of  any  one  or  two 
of  them  or  the  unification  of  all  three  means  that 
some  officials  are  going  to  be  thrown  out  of  their 
jobs,  something  that  is  not  only  perfectly  well 
known  but  is  a  by-word  in  the  Labour  movement. 
And  all  this,  although  practically  not  a  single  man 
in  the  movement  has  ever  attempted  or  would 
to-day  attempt  to  justify  their  independent  existence 
upon  the  plea  that  they  were  so  better  serving  the 
working  class  movement. 

With  the  problem  of  the  abolition  of  the  *  job- 
hunter  '  goes  the  question,  so  strongly  raised  in 
our  times,  not  only  as  to  whether  leaders  are  to 
be  obeyed,  but  whether  the  principle  of  leadership 
is  to  be  admitted  by  democracy.  Whether  the 
trade  union  leader  is  to  be  a  walking  delegate  at 
the  mercy  of  the  rank  and  file  who  have  elected 
him,  or  whether  he  is  at  least  to  have  some  free 
decision  at  the  arbitration  board.  In  other  words, 
whether  the  elected  leader  is  to  be  a  dummy  or  a 
parrot,  a  vote-hunter  who,  knowing  his  place 
depends  upon  his  cajolery  of  the  voter,  is  prepared 
to  be  led  in  order  to  lead,  or  whether  he  is  to  be  a 
human  being  with  the  right  to  independent  thought 
and  initiative  after  election. 

And  with  this  goes  the  opposite  problem — the 
problem  of  preventing  the  formation  of  the  bureau- 
crat and  his  slavish  following  by  the  rank  and  file. 
For  this  is  the  Scylla  and  Charybdis  with  which 

239 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

the  Labour  movement  in  all  countries  is  ever 
threatened.  The  problem  of  providing  leaders 
who  are  at  once  interpreters  and  guides  has  never 
been  solved. 

But,  once  more,  behind  all  these  problems 
lies  the  human  factor. 

And  then  quite  apart  from  the  more  immediate 
problem  of  its  attitude  to  the  triple-problem,  already- 
dealt  with  at  length,  of  War,  Nationality,  and 
Religion,  and  the  solution  of  such  problems  as  train- 
ing for  Government,  to-day  so  largely  ignored  by  the 
Labour  movement  in  all  countries,  and  the  need 
for  the  *  big  '  as  opposed  to  the  *  parish  pump  * 
idea  in  politics,  with  a  world  instead  of  a  class 
perspective,  for  that  Bogey-man  of  Socialism,  the 
Class  War,  who  has  so  often  frightened  and  fooled 
Demos,  will  have  to  go,  the  rising  democracy  will 
one  day  have  to  face  the  biggest  problem  of  all — 
the  problem  of  Majority-Rule.  It  is  the  problem 
upon  which  the  Democratic  Experiment,  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  world  such  an  experiment 
has  been  made  on  such  a  scale,  may  break  to  pieces. 

The  real  problem  which  faces  the  rising 
Democracy  is  just  this  problem — the  problem  of 
securing  within  the  limits  of  the  Democratic  State 
the  fullest  possible  representation  for  minorities, 
remembering  always  that  all  progress  comes  from 
such  minorities,  and  ultimately  from  the  individuals 
composing  them,  as  individuals.  That  is  Labour's 
biggest  problem. 

For  Labour  may  rest  assured  that  so  long  as 
human  beings  possess  adventure,  courage,  and 
initiative — so  long  as  they  are  something  more 
340 


Problems  Facing  the  Rising  Democracy 

than  mere  automata,  there  will  always  in  any 
age  and  under  any  circumstances  be  a  minority 
protestant  against  the  dead-weight  of  the  mass, 
whether  shown  by  ballot  or  by  bullet.  In  a  word, 
the  supreme  problem  with  which  democracy  is 
faced,  is  the  Individual. 

There  are  to-day  in  every  community  men  and 
women,  not  only  predatory  men  and  women  seeking 
to  exploit  their  fellows  for  profit,  but  men  and 
women  animated  by  the  love  of  their  fellows,  who, 
with  a  deathless  passion  for  liberty,  would  rather 
live  in  a  desert  and  be  free  than  hog  it  amongst  the 
fleshpots  of  bureaucracy.  This  is  no  capitalist 
bogey — it  is  the  outstanding  fact  of  our  time, 
perhaps  of  any  time. 

If  Democracy  banish  such  men  and  women 
beyond  the  confines  of  the  Democratic  State,  they 
will  have  banished  inspiration  and  progress.  The 
problem  which  faces  Democracy  is  not  only  the 
retention  of  such  men  and  women  but  the  delegation 
of  powers  which  will  give  them  the  leading  voice 
in  the  control  of  the  future  democratic  state. 

For,  let  it  never  be  forgotten,  the  only  justification 
of  Democracy  is  that  it  elect  leaders  superior  in 
brain  and  spirit  to  the  rank  and  file  who  elect  them. 
Democracy  is  no  heaven-sent  principle.  Like  all 
other  principles  it  can  only  be  justified  of  its  fruits. 
If  the  mass  can  not  or  will  not  elect  the  master- 
mind, then  democracy  will  be  thrown  on  the  scrap- 
heap  of  evolution  as  one  more  experiment  which 
has  been  tried  and  failed. 


241 


XXI 

*  WHAT    SHALL    LABOUR    DO    .    .    .  ?  * 

What  shall  Labour  do  to  be  saved  ? 

To  be  saved  not  only  from  itself  but  to  save 
society  ? 

Before  answering  that  question,  the  writer 
wishes  to  say  how  well  he  knows  that  any  counsel 
ventured  by  him  or  others  will  be  laughed  to  scorn 
by  the  men  and  women  who,  gorged  on  votes  and 
*  success,*  sit  enthroned  in  the  House  of  Labour; 
how  his  contentions,  despite  the  fact  that  many 
of  them  are  contentions  to  be  found  not  only 
within  the  periodicals  of  Labour  and  on  the  lips 
of  the  prominent  workers  in  the  Labour  movement 
quoted  here,  but  on  the  lips  of  Labour  critics 
throughout  the  world,  will  be  treated  either  as 
false  or  chimerical,  and  how,  even  in  the  hearts  of 
men  who  know  full  well  that  all  is  not  right  with 
Labour,  the  whole  will  be  treated  as  *  words, 
words,  words.* 

Yet,  despite  this  assurance  in  the  mind  of  the 
writer,  he  will  venture  to  state  the  conclusions  to 
which  he  and,  as  regards  some  of  them  at  least, 
many  others  have  come  inside  the  Labour  movement. 
They  may  be  regarded  as  so  many  counsels  of 
perfection,  but  whether  that  be  so  or  not  they 
form  at  least  in  the  writer's  opinion  the  only  way 
by  which  the  Democratic  Experiment  in  our  time 
242 


*  What  shall  Labour  do  ...  ? 

and  generation  can  be  rescued  from  the  fate  which 
otherwise  seems  inevitably  to  await  it. 

But  this  rescue  can  alone  be  effected  by  a  tiny 
minority  of  thinkers  inside  the  labour  movement, 
who  can  only  make  their  appeal  to  the  vast  mass 
of  their  followers  who,  instinctively,  at  heart,  wish 
to  do  right  for  themselves  and  for  society.  Of  all 
classes  the  writer  believes  that  the  working-class 
is  perhaps  the  truest  in  its  instincts,  if  only  because 
it  is  closest  to  the  realities  of  life  and  because  it  is 
the  struggling  class.  It  is  when  classes,  like 
individuals,  cease  to  struggle  and  become  *  success- 
ful *  that  their  consciences  and  their  objectives 
become  warped. 

It  will  be  the  task  of  that  tiny  minority  inside 
the  Labour  movements  of  all  countries  to  cry 
'  Halt!  '  to  Demos  upon  his  present  path.  It  will 
be  their  task  to  say  to  him :  *  The  war,  combined 
with  **  success,"  has  switched  the  Labour  democracy 
from  its  old  path  of  idealism  to  a  new  and  dangerous 
path.  It  is  the  business  of  Democracy  to  get  back 
upon  its  old  road.'  And  then,  following  this. 
Demos  will  have  to  be  awakened  to  the  fact  that 
the  goal  of  existence  is  not  the  belly  but  the  soul — 
not  gratification   but  development. 

Only,  even  before  we  go  any  farther,  all  this 
means  the  deliberate  breaking  down  of  the  working- 
class  movement  in  order  that  it  may  be  rebuilt. 
It  means,  for  a  time,  splits  and  tearings  away, 
And  it  means,  whether  the  leaders  like  it  or 
not,  almost  going  back  to  the  starting-point 
again. 

All  of  which  to  the  average  leader,  drunk  on 

243 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

votes  and  success,  seeing  behind  him  the  apparently 
resistless  mob-millions  of  Labour,  will  seem  the 
dreams  of  a  madman. 

It  means  that  this  minority  will  have  to  say  to 
the  mass:  *  Stop  your  whining!  Stop  all  this  vain 
talk  about  oppression  and  exploitation!  Stop  all 
this  pitiful  appeal  of  the  down  and  outer!  Your 
chains  you  yourself  have  forged.  You  hug  them 
as  you  hug  your  delusions.  They  will  fall  away 
from  you  of  themselves  when  you  lose  the  illusions 
which  keep  them  in  place.* 

Only  one  asks  oneself:  *  What  leader  to-day 
will  have  the  courage  to  say  that,  knowing  that 
doing  so  means  the  price  of  place  ?  ' 

Then,  if  the  Labour  movement  is  to  be  saved, 
the  leaders  will  have  to  tell  the  rank  and  file  that 
the  price  of  privilege  is  responsibility.  They  must 
be  told  that  for  every  inch  they  win  on  the  road  to 
freedom — not  only  freedom  from  the  *  capitalist 
oppressor '  but  freedom  from  themselves — will 
have  to  be  paid  by  increased  responsibility,  by  an 
increased  sense  of  duty  to  the  community  apart 
from  class,  and  by  increased  self-denial  and  self- 
sacrifice.  They  will  have  to' be  told  the  fact,  known 
to-day  to  thousands  of  calculating  minds  and 
cowardly  hearts  which  refuse  to  tell  it,  that  the 
Democratic  State  will  need  an  infinitely  higher 
standard  of  morale,  spiritual,  intellectual,  and 
physical,  than  the  competitive  state  of  to-day. 
And  they  will  finally  have  to  be  told  the  fact 
that  it  is  not  voting  but  thinking  which  wins 
freedom. 

And  where  to-day  is  the  leader  who  will  dare  to 
244 


,    *  fFhat  shall  Labour  do  .  .  ,  ?^ 

put  all  upon  a  single  throw  of  the  dice  and  come 
out  in  any  European  country  boldly  to  tell  the 
proletariat  that  *  ca'  canny '  is  the  unforgivable 
sin,  for  it  is  sinning  against  self.  Who  of  them  will 
say :  *  Any  man  who  does  less  than  his  best  when 
he  is  working,  not  for  his  employer,  but  for  himself, 
for  his  own  self-respect  and  for  his  own  develop- 
ment, is  a  traitor  to  himself  and  to  his  fellows  ? 
Strive  for  better  conditions.  Strive  for  shorter 
hours  and  better  wages,  if  you  will.  But  for  God's 
sake,  for  your  own  sake,  when  you  work,  go  all 
out!' 

And  who  of  them  will  tell  the  worker  that  there 
are  even  worse  things  than  starvation  and  over- 
work, however  hideous  and  blighting  both  the  one 
and  the  other  may  be.  Who  of  them  will  say  to 
him  that  starvation  of  the  mind  is  even  worse  than 
that  of  the  body,  and  that  the  solution  of  the 
poverty  problem,  essential  as  it  is,  will  but  set  free 
a  whole  series  of  new  and  still  more  vital  problems  } 
And  who  of  them  will  tell  him  that  the  road  to 
freedom  is  only  to  be  tortuously  trod,  perhaps 
generation  after  generation,  by  education  and  by 
the  development  of  self  and  by  arduous,  faithful 
training  } 

Will  any  of  these  gentlemen  come  out  and  say 
that  the  Labour  Army  must  of  all  others  be  the 
most  disciplined  and,  yet,  the  most  thoughtful 
and  the  most  individualist .''  That  it  must  be  an 
army  of  potential  officers,  in  the  knapsack  of  each 
of  whom  a  marshal's  baton  is  carried  }  And  that, 
therefore,  the  leaders,  once  elected,  must  have  the 
right  to  lead  }    And  who  is  to  tell  the  rank  and  file 

L.  R  245 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

that  there  are  certain  truths  which  no  phrase-making, 
no  political  casuistry  can  sidestep — the  eternal 
truths  that  lie  behind  all  human  evolution  whether 
of  master  or  man  or  race  ? 

Who  is  to  tell  them,  as  they  must  be  told,  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  *  the  Right  of  the  Majority,' 
except  in  so  far  as  the  Right  of  the  Minority  ranks 
equal,  and  that,  indeed,  of  all  shibboleths,  this 
*  Majority  Right '  is  one  of  the  most  dangerous, 
just  as  dangerous  in  its  way  as  *  the  Right  of  the 
Autocrat,'  of  which  indeed  it  is  the  shadow  ?  For 
Demos  will  have  to  be  told,  and  now,  if  he  is  to  be 
saved  from  himself,  that  it  is  the  Minority,  not 
the  minority  of  money  but  the  minority  of  brain 
and  spirit,  which  leads  to-day,  in  any  sense  in  which 
the  word  has  real  meaning,  and  that,  despite  all 
transitional  stages,  it  is  this  Minority  which  always 
will  lead.  That  even  under  the  Democratic  State 
the  only  claim  to  leadership  will  be  the  claim  of 
spiritual  aristocracy  and  spiritual  superiority- 
net  merely  the  claim,  but  the  fact. 

One  almost  imagines,  however,  that  the  time  is 
fast  passing,  or  even  has  passed,  when  this  minority 
can  tell  these  things  from  inside  the  Labour 
movement.  It  may  be  that  it  can  only  be 
done  by  coming  out  from  the  labyrinth  of  political 
labour  and  giving  the  message  from  the  out- 
side. 

But  whether  this  minority  give  the  message  of 
the  new  democracy  from  within  the  ranks  or  outside 
the  ranks  of  the  organised  labour  movement  in 
any  country,  it  is  assured  that  the  Democratic 
Experiment  in  its  present  form,  despite  all  seeming 
246 


'  What  shall  Labour  do  .  ,  .  ?  * 

success,  despite  even  a  temporary — for  it  will  only 
be  temporary — accession  to  power,  will  fail  and 
utterly.  The  only  hope  of  Democracy  lies,  for 
the  reasons  given  throughout  these  pages,  in  the 
building  up  slowly  and  surely  of  a  new  move- 
ment, a  movement  inspired  by  the  ideals  of 
what  the  writer  has  ventured  to  call  '  spiritual 
democracy.* 


247 


XXII 


SPIRITUAL    DEMOCRACY 


The  writer  at  least  believes  that  nothing  can  now 
prevent  the  breaking  away  of  the  men  and  women 
of  what  he  has  called  *  the  new  democracy  '  from 
the  ranks  of  the  organised  Labour  movement  of 
to-day.  It  will  break  away  because  they  will 
discover  and  are  indeed  already  discovering  that 
between  the  materialist  and  the  anti-materialist 
there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed,  and  that  so  long 
as  the  Democracy  of  our  days  is  animated 
by  the  materialist  inspiration  and  drives  for- 
ward to  a  materialist  goal  so  long  will  it  be 
impossible  for  them  to  remain  in  that  move- 
ment. 

This  new  democracy  will  be  *  the  despised  and 
scorned,*  not  only  of  men  in  general,  but  especially 
of  the  Labour  movement,  partly  because  even 
those  leaders  and  workers  who  know  that  the  soul 
has  gone  out  of  that  movement,  with  a  well-known 
weakness  of  human  nature  hate  to  admit  that  they 
have  given  the  best  years  of  their  lives  to  what  is 
really  a  failure,  and,  so  far  as  the  others  are  con- 
cerned, partly  because  there  is  nothing  the  idealess 
hate  more  than  the  *  idea.'  For  a  long  time  it  will 
work  in  darkness  and  silence,  the  members  of 
it  even  often  not  knowing  one  another,  but  at 
last  it  will  emerge  into  the  light  of  day  with 
248 


,  *  Spiritual  Democracy  * 

the  old,  finer  aspirations  of  Labour  and  the 
experience  which  the  failure  of  the  Labour 
movement  has  brought. 

They  will  cast  aside  the  shibboleths  of 
democracy  even  as  democracy  cast  aside  the 
shibboleths  of  the  autocracy  which  preceded  it, 
and  if,  in  the  course  of  time,  other  shibboleths 
should  creep  in,  as  in  this  imperfect  world  is 
sure,  the  foundations  of  a  newer  and  better 
movement  at  least  will  have  been  well  and  truly 
laid  for  *  the  eternal  minorities  '  of  the  future 
to  continue  the  work.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  see 
that  in  the  scheme  of  evolution  no  move- 
ment can  hope  for  permanence.  Evolution  the 
experimenter  casts  aside  movement  after  move- 
ment and  man  after  man  as  each  has  done 
its  or  his  work,  just  as  it  will  one  day  cast 
aside  the  democratic  movement  of  to-day. 
For  has  it  not  all  eternity  in  which  to 
work .'' 

One  of  the  first  recognitions  of  the  new  movement, 
a  recognition  which  in  all  countries  and  noticeably 
in  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  is  to  be 
found  scattering  itself  across  the  pages  of  books 
and  reviews  as  from  the  pulpit  and  the  platform 
to-day,  in  these  after-the-war  days  when  with  the 
degradation  of  ideal  caused  by  the  war  there  is 
arising  phoenix-like  a  minority  from  the  ashes 
finer  perhaps  than  the  world  has  ever  seen,  will  be 
the  vast  chasms,  spiritual  and  intellectual,  chasms 
of  training  and  development,  separating  individual 
from  individual.  There  will  be  no  more  foolish 
attempts    at    the    will    o'    the    wisp    *  Equality.' 

249 


Labour  :  The  Giant  with  the  Feet  of  Clay 

It  will  frankly  recognise  that  men  and  women 
have  never  been  equal  nor  ever  will  be,  and 
it  will  recognise  that  only  just  so  far  as  this 
recognition  is  made  is  a  true  democracy  pos- 
sible. 

It  will  realise  that  the  Bolshevist,  like  his 
*  comrade  *  of  the  political  labour  machine,  is  no 
accidental  phenomenon,  born  of  passing  circum- 
stances, but  is  the  product  of  certain  vast  and  deep- 
set  principles  moving  obscurely  behind  the  riddle 
of  life,  and  it  will  be  recognised  that  to  pretend 
compromise  or  a  common  democracy  with  either 
the  one  or  the  other  is  simply  to  pretend  the 
impossible. 

And  out  from  this  will  go  that  further  recog- 
nition, so  frequently  emphasised,  that  men  and 
women  are  separated,  not  by  class,  not  by 
economic  position,  but  by  ideal  and  goal,  for  the 
new  democracy  will  draw  its  adherents  from  all 
classes. 

The  new  democracy  will  wait  its  time  patiently 
whilst  it  watches  Labour  climb  slowly  to  power  ; 
whilst  it  sees  the  apparent  success  of  the  Labour 
movement  in  the  capture  of  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment, local  and  national  ;  and  whilst  it  listens 
to  those  phrases  of  *  brotherhood,'  of  *  liberty,' 
and  of  *  internationalism  *  which  Labour  and  its 
leaders  will  mouth  more  and  more,  the  phrases 
which  will  be  '  sounding  brass  and  tinkling  cymbal.' 
It  will  watch,  something  still  harder,  the  fine  spirits 
who,  seduced  by  these  phrases,  fearing  to  admit 
the  failure  of  life  efforts,  will  hold  to  that  move- 
ment hoping  to  accomplish  the  impossible,  and 
250 


*  Spiritual  Democracy  * 

when  Demos  has  climbed  to  power  and  sits 
gargantuan  and  enthroned  throughout  the  world, 
it  will  await  with  the  calmness  bred  of  conviction 
the  crashing  downwards  of  the  Giant  with  the 
Feet  of  Clay. 

And  upon  the  ruins  it  will  erect  the  temple  of 
a  democracy  of  spirit — the  temple  of  the  New 
Democracy, 


251 


GLASGOW  :     W.    COLLINS   SONS   AND    CO.    LTD. 


Date  Due 


MAY  2  ^  196B 
HAY  19 


"2~5 


t^AY2  5 


1963 


964 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A  A      000  030  095    4 


HD8390 


Dli 


Desmond,  Shaw. 

Labour,  the  giant  with  the  feet  of 
clay. 


